Africa Transforming (Vol. 2) : Scaled Up Financing for Scaled Up Ambition

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AFRICA
TRANSFORMING
Scaled up financing for scaled up ambition
VOLUME 2
losure Authorized

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Cover: Using the World Bank Group’s Scaling Solar Program, Zambia has been able to procure privately financed solar power
and enable its rapid rollout. Construction of Zambia’s first grid-connected solar PV power plant is underway at Bangweulu. © NEOEN
4

AFRICA
TRANSFORMING
Scaled up financing for scaled up ambition
VOLUME 2

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Table of Contents
BUILDING HUMAN
CAPITAL
STRENGTHENING
MARKETS
EXPANDING
INFRASTRUCTURE
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
26
28
30
BENIN
Encouraging girls in skilled trades
CAMEROON
Linking aid to development
CHAD
Finding harmony for refugees
and hosts
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
OF CONGO
Tackling gender-based violence
THE GAMBIA
Transforming education
with technology
MADAGASCAR
Paving way for national education
reform
MOZAMBIQUE
Keeping medicines stocked
and students learning
NIGER
Job training for youth
employment
NIGERIA
Eradicating polio
RWANDA
Working her way out of poverty
UGANDA
Renewing support for refugee
hosts
40
42
44
46
48
50
52
54
56
58
60
62
BURUNDI
Restoring vital landscapes
CÔTE D’IVOIRE
eAgriculture solutions for digital
age
GHANA
Promoting sustainable
commercial agriculture
GUINEA
Investing in agricultural
productivity
LESOTHO
Championing agricultural
entrepreneurs
MALAWI
Investing in irrigation
REPUBLIC OF CONGO
Building an agribusiness
SIERRA LEONE
Increasing transparency in mining
TANZANIA
Expanding sustainable tourism
TOGO
Revolutionizing poultry industry
WEST AFRICA
Opening paths to homeownership
WEST AFRICA
Catalyzing off-grid solar markets
66
68
70
72
74
76
78
80
82
84
BURKINA FASO
Extending water and sanitation
services
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
Powering up with solar
ETHIOPIA
Bridging gender gaps in energy
KENYA
Promoting public-private
partnerships
LIBERIA
Increasing access to electricity
MALI
Easing rural mobility
SENEGAL
Increasing access to water
ZAMBIA
Unlocking large scale solar
WEST AFRICA
Fighting coastal erosion
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
Modernizing hydromet services
32
WEST AFRICA
Empowering women and girls
34
WEST AND CENTRAL AFRICA
Training African scientists
36
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
Preparing for pandemics

■
Andela, a company based
in Nigeria and Kenya, is
helping to shape Africa’s
growing digital economy
by training software
developers and placing
them in salaried positions
in companies worldwide.
© Dominic Chavez /
International Finance
Corporation
CATALYZING AFRICA’S TRANSFORMATION
There are countries across Africa driving ambitious development agendas, including
pioneering mobile money, adopting renewable energy on a large scale, and investing
in human capital.
Development partners are strongly supporting the World Bank in matching this
ambition. The 18th replenishment of the International Development Association
(IDA), our fund for the world’s poorest countries, is the largest in history: targeting
$45 billion to 39 IDA-eligible countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
This makes IDA a preeminent provider of development assistance at scale. More
importantly, it marks our firm commitment to our client countries and development
partners to catalyze transformation and accelerate progress.
We have hit the ground running. In the first year of the IDA18 cycle, we have invested
$15.4 billion in new projects and programs across Africa. This is our largest ever
single-year commitment of resources and more than 50 percent greater than the
annual average during IDA17.
We have injected new IDA financing to help countries like Madagascar raise
healthcare and education standards to ensure the very youngest members of
society get a good start in life. We are supporting countries across the Sahel in their
efforts to curb child marriage and empower girls and women through education
and reproductive healthcare. And across the region, we are helping boost the skills
and employability of Africa’s youth for in-demand jobs that can fuel economic
diversification and the fast-growing digital economy.
5

Under IDA18, we are providing dedicated support to refugees and their host
communities in many countries, including Cameroon and Uganda, and helping other
countries scarred by conflict and violence rebuild essential infrastructure and social
services to increase productivity and economic opportunities for their citizens.
We are helping countries mitigate and adapt to climate change with increased
investments in climate-smart agriculture, coastal erosion, and hydrometeorological
services. Indeed, last year our record new commitments generated
a 25 percent rate of climate co-benefits, in excess of our target. Examples include
the West Africa Coastal Areas program as a globally-significant effort to tackle
climate change impacts.
We are also expanding renewable energy markets to address critical energy shortages
sustainably. Zambia and the Central African Republic are launching their first-ever
large scale solar power plants, and Kenya now has more than half of its energy from
climate-friendly sources.
Progress is encouraging, but we must make more and faster. Although Africa’s
poverty rate is falling, rapid population growth of 2.6 percent per year has led to
an increase in the absolute number of people living in poverty. The region continues
to face daunting challenges and demand for IDA resources is stronger than ever.
By working upstream and de-risking countries through the Maximizing Finance for
Development approach, we are empowering the private sector to invest more in
Africa’s development.
This volume presents these and many other activities that IDA18 is supporting—
scaling up successful approaches and backing ambitious new ones that hold
tremendous promise. It is an exciting moment for Africa and, with continued IDA
support, we are making a difference and building a better future for Africa, together.
HAFEZ GHANEM
Vice President for Africa
World Bank
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A surveyor takes the GPS
altitude of a water-control
canal in Mozambique as
part of efforts to mitigate
flood and drought damage
near the provincial capital
of Xai Xai and surrounding
areas.
© CIF 2014

BUILDING HUMAN
CAPITAL
■
IDA investments across sub-Saharan
Africa are helping to keep girls in
school and expand their social and
economic prospects.
© Arne Hoel / World Bank

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More and more girls
are entering vocational
training to learn indemand
trades such
as plumbing.
© Stephane Brabant /
World Bank
BENIN
Encouraging girls to embrace
skilled trades
The demand for skilled labor is high in maledominated
fields like construction and car
repair. Girls are looking past gender stereotypes
to seize opportunities through vocational and
technical training.
10

On the roof of a building under construction in the Camp
Guézo district of Cotonou, Jaëlle Hounkanrin and fellow
apprentices deftly install pipes between the rods of a
slab. She is training to be a plumber and is proud of it.
“I am the only girl on the construction site, but I do the
jobs assigned to me just like the boys. I love what I do,”
she affirms, brimming with confidence.
Hounkanrin is a school dropout who now boards at the
Training and Apprenticeship Center in the commune of
Pahou (Centre de formation et d’apprentissage de Pahou).
She and some 30 other girls at the center are training for
so-called men’s jobs, braving the social norms.
The center is one of 73 vocational training institutions
across Benin supported by the Youth Employment
Project financed by the World Bank. With a funding
package of $35 million, the project has already helped
some 3,500 young people, half of them girls, obtain their
professional qualification certificate.
Training for job opportunities
Chantal Médégnon, who holds a certificate in electricity,
construction, and industry, saw vocational training
as a path toward better employment opportunities.
When she left school at the 8 th grade, she determined
hairdressing and dressmaking were oversubscribed and
not to her liking.
“But in construction you are always in demand and can
go from site to site,” she explains.
While their numbers are small compared to boys, Benin’s
girls are gaining ground and performing well in vocational
training in fields like automobile repair, electricity, cooling
and air conditioning, welding, and building construction.
I am the only girl on the construction
site, but I do the jobs assigned to me
just like the boys. I love what I do.
Jaëlle Hounkanrin, plumbing apprentice
in Cotonou
Building business skills and more
Besides apprenticeships, the project provides small
grants to help young people strengthen their business
skills and enter the job market. Already 7,500 young
people, half of them girls, have each received CFAF
200,000 (around $370) for this purpose. Many are girls
trained in traditionally male occupations.
To further expand their ranks, the project is offering
technical and micro-entrepreneurship training in nontraditional
trades for 500 girls. It also is providing startup
grants to help them launch and expand their activities.
Momentum continues with three new projects to be
financed under IDA18. The Education for Employment
Project will build on activities by supporting more young
people, including girls, in acquiring the skills needed in
priority economic sectors where there is ever-increasing
demand for skilled labor. The Youth Inclusion Project will
focus on services to promote the social and economic
inclusion of young people in various communities.
Benin will also join the Sahel Women Empowerment
and Demographic Dividend Project, which, among
other support, helps girls gain access to scientific and
technological subjects and priority economic sectors.
“We want to end the social norms that combine to
discourage girls from pursuing these occupations
traditionally exercised by men. The model offered by
those who are already trained encourages us to urge
women to have confidence in themselves and to make
the most of their potential,” explains Maxime Sogbossi,
Project Coordinator.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | BUILDING HUMAN CAPITAL
11

■
Hadjidjatou Djibrilla,
here with six of her
10 children, feels safe
in the poor but peaceful
commune of Kouba,
East Region.
© Odilia Hebga / World
Bank
CAMEROON
Linking humanitarian aid
to local development
To help poor countries respond to the needs of
both refugee and host communities, the World
Bank has created the $2 billion IDA18 regional
sub-window for refugees and host communities.
In May 2018, Cameroon became the first
country to benefit.
12

Hadjidjatou Djibrilla lives in poverty, as do most residents
in the commune of Kouba in the East Region of Cameroon.
At 38, she has been a refugee for 12 years. She fled her
country when fighting between the government and
rebel forces intensified.
Cameroon ranks 13th in the world for hosting refugees—
seventh in Africa. Almost 350,000 refugees were counted
as registered in Cameroon by February 2018, with
Central African refugees accounting for 20 percent of the
population of the country’s East Region and 6 percent of
its Adamawa Region. Most may never return home.
“I no longer want to leave,” says an emotional Djibrilla.
“I feel safe here and my children are growing up in a
peaceful environment. The war in my country has not
ended, so why should I go back?”
More than half the world’s refugees have been displaced
for over four years. Their situation can no longer be
handled as a temporary humanitarian crisis. A more
permanent solution must be found—one that offers a
new beginning for refugee men, women, and children,
while easing pressure on the communities that host them,
which are already very poor.
A new financing mechanism
To help poor countries respond to the needs of both
refugee and host communities, the World Bank has
created the $2 billion IDA18 regional sub-window for
refugees and host communities.
In May 2018, Cameroon became the first country to
benefit from this mechanism, with $274 million in
additional financing for four current projects in the
development and social protection, education, and health
sectors. Cameroon is one of the eight countries selected
to pilot this new form of integrated assistance, along
with Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti,
Ethiopia, Niger, Pakistan, and Uganda.
I feel safe here and my children are
growing up in a peaceful environment.
The war in my country has not
ended, so why should I go back?
Hadjidjatou Djibrilla, refugee living in Kouba
Elisabeth Huybens, World Bank Country Director for
Angola, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and
São Tomé & Príncipe, said additional IDA18 resources
specially earmarked for refugees and host communes
“will allow us to directly target these persons in existing
projects, and to provide support to the State, which can
very often be overwhelmed with managing the influx of
refugees at the regional level.”
Kouassi Lazare Etien, who represents the UN Refugee
Agency in Cameroon, believes “this new approach
demonstrates that the presence of refugees can also
contribute to the development of host communities.”
Benefiting refugees and hosts alike
For example, the third phase of the Community
Development Program Support Project will facilitate
community development activities and build local
government capacity in management and host services.
It aims to address the concerns of refugees at the local
level, intervening in such sensitive issues as genderrelated
violence or land tenure.
Activities under the Social Safety Net Project will be
stepped up in host regions, with refugees receiving
identification documents to help them access Cameroon’s
national social protection system, employment
assistance, and other citizen services.
The Cameroon Education Reform Support Project will
assist schools in host regions to integrate children in a
normal curriculum and special education programs, as
well as bring in more state-paid teachers and textbooks.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | BUILDING HUMAN CAPITAL 13

CHAD
Finding harmony for refugees
and host communities
■
Elise Morembaye
of the Mekoulom
Women’s Group in
Goré calls for support
from partners on
behalf of the host
community.
© Edmond
Dingamhoudou /
World Bank
The number of people seeking refuge in Chad
XXX continues to grow, with over 634,000 refugees,
asylum seekers, and internally displaced people
identified by the UN Refugee Agency in April
2018. IDA18 funding will improve conditions
for refugees and host communities alike.
14

Some 8,000 people are desperately trying to rebuild
their lives in the Dar es Salaam refugee camp located
along the banks of Lake Chad in the town of Baga Sola,
Chad. Dispersed over several kilometers in endless
canvas tents bearing the colors of the United Nations,
they are struggling to recover from the trauma inflicted
by Boko Haram.
Further away in the far south of the country, the Goré
prefecture is also buckling under the weight of refugees.
“Here, all the returnees and refugees who fled the war in
the Central African Republic (CAR) account for half of
the local population,” explains Augustin Gongtar, Goré’s
former prefect.
The Dar Sila region, which straddles the border with
Sudan, has sheltered refugees from Darfur for over a
decade, and more recently, from CAR. Here, too, the
region’s former governor, General Moussa Haroun Tirgo,
paints a bleak picture, “We are hosting roughly 54,000
refugees in terrible living conditions, with no access to
water or basic social services. We are also cut off for five
months of the year because of floods.”
Improve access to social services
In September 2018, the World Bank approved $60 million
in IDA grant funding to help Chad improve access to basic
social services and livelihoods for refugees and host
communities and to help strengthen national refugee
management systems through the Refugees and Host
Communities Support Project (PARCA).
There are an estimated 1.1 million direct and indirect
project beneficiaries, 30 to 50 percent of whom are
refugees located in the refugee hosting areas of the East
and South regions and around Lake Chad.
“This grant complements the aid already provided to
some 450,000 refugees by local communities, the
Government of Chad, and international agencies. This
project aims to create the conditions that will enable
the gradual integration of refugees into the social and
This project aims to create the conditions
that will enable the gradual
integration of refugees.
Soukeyna Kane, World Bank Country Director
for Chad, Guinea, Mali, and Niger
economic landscape of the country and strengthen the
national refugee management system,” states Soukeyna
Kane, World Bank Country Director for Chad, Guinea,
Mali, and Niger.
The PARCA will improve access to health and education
services with investments to rehabilitate or build new
public service infrastructure in refugee hosting areas.
It will contribute to the expansion of Chad’s social
protection system to include vulnerable households in
Chadian and refugee communities through cash transfer
programs or support for productive activities. Support
also will go to the National Commission for Refugee
and Returnee Assistance and national mechanisms for
refugee protection, registration, and monitoring.
New partnership for comprehensive
response
The project was developed by a technical interministerial
committee chaired by the Ministry of
Economy and Development Planning in collaboration
with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the World Food
Programme, European Civil Protection and Humanitarian
Aid Operations, and other relevant agencies.
“The UNHCR welcomes this World Bank financing
for the Government of Chad, which is part of the new
Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework and the
humanitarian-development continuum. We stand ready
to make a success of this new, inclusive partnership
model and replicate it in other projects,” affirms UNHCR
Representative, Mbili Ambaoumba.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | BUILDING HUMAN CAPITAL 15

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
Tackling gender-based violence
through prevention
■
Women practice
rhythm exercises
during music therapy
at Maison Dorcas, a
community center
set up by the Panzi
Hospital.
© Naama Haviv / Panzi
Hospital and Foundation
In Africa’s Great Lakes Region, the World
Bank XXX is scaling up its support to help victims
of gender-based violence and to stop it from
happening in the first place. New focus on
prevention and community involvement will help
shift social norms.
16

Pervasive conflict has taken its toll on women in the
Great Lakes Region of East Africa. Security remains
fragile and public services are weak in the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC). Burundi has made progress in
securing peace, but poverty levels remain high and sexual
and gender-based violence is widespread. Rwanda has
made dramatic strides since the mid-1990s and plans to
redouble its efforts to confront violence against women
and children.
In 2014, the Great Lakes Emergency Sexual and Gender-
Based Violence and Women’s Health Project launched as
the first World Bank project in Africa offering integrated
services to survivors of gender-based violence. IDA grants
totaling $107 million have since made their way to DRC,
Burundi, and Rwanda to support health and counseling
services, legal aid, and economic opportunities for
survivors, as well as to strengthen health services for
poor and vulnerable women in the region.
Empowering community-based
organizations and mobilizing them
in the fight against gender-based
violence is of crucial importance.
Jean‐Christophe Carret, World Bank Country
Director for Central African Republic, the DRC,
and the Republic of Congo
community-based organizations and mobilizing them
in the fight against gender-based violence is of crucial
importance. As the lack of economic autonomy can be
a driver of gender-based violence, the project will also
build livelihoods and provide economic opportunities
through savings and income-generating activities at the
community level.”
Not just a “private matter”
In DRC alone, 40,000 people, including 29,000 women,
have benefitted from these services and support, but
more can be done to stop gender-based violence in the
first place. In August 2018, the World Bank committed
another $100 million in IDA financing to prevent genderbased
violence in the DRC.
The new Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Response
Project will consolidate gains made under the Great Lakes
regional project and take aim at shifting social norms by
promoting gender equality and behavioral change through
strong partnerships with civil society organizations. In a
country where 75 percent of women and 60 percent of
men believe that wife beating is justified, involving men
and boys in the process will demonstrate that violence
is an issue that must be tackled at the community level
and is not just a “private matter.”
According to Jean‐Christophe Carret, the World
Bank Country Director for Central African Republic,
the DRC, and the Republic of Congo, “Empowering
Services for survivors, support for all
The new project will reach 795,000 direct beneficiaries
over the next four years, 400,000 of whom are women
and girls.
A critical mass of qualified and reputable community
activists (both women and men), including paralegals,
health and social workers, teachers, and religious leaders,
will be deployed to implement prevention activities
in communities across targeted zones in four eastern
provinces. Safe spaces will be established for women and
girls at the community level where survivors will have
access to psycho-social support and other specialized
health services.
In addition, the project will rely on the expertise of
existing centers of excellence—the Panzi Hospital and
Foundation in South Kivu and Heal Africa in North Kivu—
with demonstrated experience in responding to genderbased
violence in emergency settings. Both operate
mobile clinics in remote areas where insecurity and
sexual violence are endemic.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | BUILDING HUMAN CAPITAL 17

■
Technology like smart
boards and handheld
smart responders,
combined with teacher
training, make math
and science classes
more engaging and
improve learning.
© New Jersey Center
for Teaching and
Learning
THE GAMBIA
Transforming math and science
education with technology
Classrooms in The Gambia are piloting an
innovative program that combines technology
tools, course materials, and teaching methods
to enhance math and science education in
secondary school. Test scores prove it works and
IDA18 is expanding the program.
18

To produce the scientists and engineers it needs to solve
development challenges and advance socio-economic
ambitions, The Gambia has partnered with the World
Bank and others to raise the quality of its math and
science education. In 2012, a pilot program introduced
the Progressive Science Initiative and Progressive
Math Initiative (PSI-PMI) in 24 upper basic and senior
secondary schools. Developed by the New Jersey Center
for Teaching and Learning, this adaptive approach
facilitates classroom engagement and student learning
through technology.
Dusty chalkboards were replaced with interactive smart
boards and classrooms were outfitted with solar panels
to overcome the intermittent supply of electricity.
Teachers received training and online course materials to
standardize the curriculum and make it more studentcentered.
Students received handheld smart responders
to use in class to answer problems in an engaging, gamelike
manner—and to allow teachers to gauge student
understanding in real-time.
Profound effect on learning
According to Samuel Koidia, a physics and math teacher
at Nursat Senior Secondary School in Serrekunda, The
Gambia’s largest urban area, PSI-PMI’s methods and use
of technology have had a profound effect.
“There is a shift in the whole delivery of the subject
matter—a shift in the pedagogy, a shift in the
understanding, a shift in the time,” he explains. “In the
conventional mode of teaching, the teacher must do 80
percent of the work and the student is only given 20
percent of the time to interact. Now, it is the reverse and
it is helping students to understand concepts.”
Usman Kuraisy, a science teacher at nearby Charles Jow
Memorial Academy, says the use of smart responders
improves class dynamics and learning by “making it very
easy for me to assess my children. As we go along, I see
how they are moving—the weak ones, the strong ones—
and I know when to go back over my lesson and when
to continue.”
There is a shift in the whole delivery
of the subject matter—a shift in the
pedagogy, a shift in the understanding,
a shift in the time.
Samuel Koidia, physics and math teacher at
Nursat Senior Secondary School in Serrekunda
Both Koidia and Kuraisy see a jump in their students’
academic performance and their enthusiasm for math
and science. Ansumana Jobarteh, an 11th grader at
Nursat Secondary School agrees, “Before PSI-PMI, I was
doing fine, but now that I can compare the results, I can
say that I love the subject of physics more than before.”
Preliminary independent evaluations of the pilot indicate
that PSI-PMI students scored 21 percent higher on a
math test relative to a comparable group of non-PSI-PMI
students from non-PSI-PMI matched schools.
Expanding PSI-PMI
The Gambian government aims to expand PSI-PMI
supported by the new Education Sector Support
Program. With grant funding of $30 million from IDA18
and $5 million from the Global Partnership for Education,
the program expects to benefit over 400,000 schoolaged
children, including those enrolled in Majalis (religious
schools).
In addition to scaling up PSI-PMI in upper grades, it will
support systemwide improvements in teacher training
and expanded early childhood education initiatives. The
curriculum of all core subjects in lower and upper basic
schools will also be reviewed, and revised textbooks will
be printed and distributed to every school in the country.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | BUILDING HUMAN CAPITAL 19

■
Justin is happy to be
back in school after
two years away. He
had to drop out when
his parents could not
afford fees.
© Diana Styvaney /
World Bank
MADAGASCAR
Paving the way for national
education reform
In 2009, public spending on education fell as
foreign funding plunged following a political
crisis. Thousands of children were at risk of
being taken out of school. Emergency support
has led to scaled up funding that is overhauling
basic education.
20

Justin is 14 years old. He is in 5th grade, but his friends
are already in lower secondary school. He had to drop
out of school in 2014 when his parents could no longer
afford to pay for his education. After the political crisis
that shook Madagascar in 2009, his parents were unable
to make ends meet.
Justin’s mother explains: “My husband is a builder and
work was very scarce. I’m a seamstress and it’s even
worse in a crisis when people don’t buy clothes. I have
five children and food is our priority. I had to take Justin
out of school.”
In 2016, his school was able to access funds so Justin
could return to class free of charge, but he had been
away for two years.
“I have a lot of catching up to do. All my old friends are
already in 8th grade, but that’s okay. I’m happy to be
back at school. I dream of being a teacher,” smiles Justin.
Keeping kids in school
Justin’s school, Ankadindambo public primary in the
Analamanga region, is one of many that benefited from
the Madagascar Emergency Support to Education for All
Project (MESEA). Launched in 2013 by the World Bank
with a Global Partnership for Education grant, it worked
to shore up a crumbling education system.
With a sharp drop in foreign financing, public spending
on education had fallen since 2010. This meant that
nationwide, very few schools were built, teacher and
student materials were not supplied, and hardly any
schools received government funding.
MESEA aimed to keep as many children in primary
school as possible by reducing costs borne by families,
paying subsidies to teachers, and providing school
kits to students. It supported student learning by
providing training for teachers and principals, textbooks,
classrooms, school cafeterias, and school grants.
I have a lot of catching up to do…
but that’s okay. I’m happy to be back
at school.
Justin, 14-year-old student at Ankadindambo
public primary
By the end of the four-year project, MESEA was deployed
in 12 Malagasy regions, reaching over 2 million direct
recipients. Nearly 1.9 million children were enrolled
in school, some 20,000 teachers got paid, and over
5 million school kits were distributed. In Madagascar’s
three drought-stricken regions in the south, MESEA
enabled over 100,000 children to have meals in school
cafeterias. More than 260 classrooms were built, and over
50,000 teachers trained.
New funding, largest ever for education
MESEA also paved the way for the newly launched Basic
Education Support Project funded by the World Bank and
the Global Partnership for Education. The $100 million
project is designed to improve learning outcomes in the
first two years of basic education in Madagascar.
This funding, which includes $55 million from IDA18, is the
highest ever granted to assist education in Madagascar.
It will support the implementation of reforms outlined in
the country’s 2018–2022 Education Sector Plan.
The project aims to reach over 4.7 million beneficiaries.
That includes enrolling 4.6 million children in primary
school and 80,000 children in early learning centers, as well
as training 35,000 primary school teachers, 6,500 preprimary
community educators, 4,000 communityschool
board members, and 20,000 principals and
local supervisors.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | BUILDING HUMAN CAPITAL 21

■
Health service
professionals work
in a health center in
Nampula Province, rural
Mozambique.
© Gustavo Mahoque /
World Bank
MOZAMBIQUE
Keeping medicines stocked
and students learning
Weak public financial management was
hurting the medicines supply chain and school
performance in Mozambique. By pioneering
an IDA results-based financing approach,
health and education systems improved—and
financing flowed—as targets were met.
22

Mozambique’s medical sector was in trouble: inadequate
planning, procurement, warehousing, and distribution
of medicines had led to recurrent stock outs. Reports
of stolen or damaged medicines were frequent. Lack of
medicines at service delivery points impacted care and
treatment outcomes.
The education system was also in crisis. Weak school
governance, limited community participation, ineffective
supervision, high absenteeism, and delays or the diversion
of school funds contributed to low student retention, low
completion rates, and poor learning outcomes.
In 2014, Mozambique launched its Public Financial
Management for Results Program for Health and
Education to bring more transparency and efficiency
to spending and management in these two key
sectors. It featured the World Bank’s new Program for
Results instrument.
Untested at the time, this IDA instrument disburses
funding in a phased manner and based on the achievement
of pre-agreed targets. This pioneering project paved the
way for sectors to create specific incentives to drive
behavior change at the sub-national level and across
stakeholder groups.
Progress is significant
“Medicines only have value when they reach the right
patient at the right time,” says João Grachane, a senior
officer at Mozambique’s Ministry of Health. He has seen
the project shift practitioners’ attention from inputs to
results, decisively improving the medicines supply chain.
Key progress includes a substantial increase in the
availability of essential maternal health medicines at
the facility level, from 79 percent in 2013 to 86 percent
in 2015, as well as a sharp decrease in the number of
treatment sites with stock outs of antiretroviral drugs,
from 27 percent in 2013 to 5 percent in 2015.
The education system is also faring better under the
project. Matilde Xilume, primary school director at EP1.2
of 3 de Fevereiro, explains that before the project, the
Medicines only have value when they
reach the right patient at the right
time.
João Grachane, senior officer at Mozambique’s
Ministry of Health
school’s functioning was constantly disrupted by delays
in grant allocations meant to procure basic learning
materials and support the most vulnerable children.
“We now receive our grant allocations at the beginning
of the school year, a major improvement as it allows us
to plan better at the beginning of the year,” says Xilume.
All 1,300 primary schools under the project are benefiting
from more reliably delivered funding.
Working together to find solutions
The project, which is in its final stages of implementation,
has provided a unique support structure to create a
network of reinforcing incentives. A capacity building
window has ensured that sector stakeholders collaborate
more with public financial management agencies to get
the resources they need to deliver services and improve
institutional know-how.
“The project adopted an innovative problem-driven and
iterative approach,” says Humberto Cossa, World Bank
senior health specialist. “Frontline implementers focused
on identifying bottlenecks to the achievement of results
in their sectors, bringing people out of their silos to craft
integrated solutions.”
Building on this successful approach, Mozambique has
launched a new Primary Health Care Strengthening
Program for Results. It is benefiting from additional
results-based grant financing of $105 million, including
$80 million from IDA18, to improve reproductive,
maternal, child, and adolescent health and nutrition
services in underserved areas.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | BUILDING HUMAN CAPITAL 23

■
Roumanatou Kailou
(left) attended a free
two-year training
course to become
a hairdresser.
© Djamilou Oumarou /
World Bank
NIGER
Customized job training
promotes youth employment
Every year, some 350,000 young Nigeriens
enter the job market, but most (90 percent)
do not have the right qualifications for available
positions. Niger is focused on equipping its
youth with the skills they need to find work
and build careers.
24

Twenty-five-year-old Roumanatou Kailou lives and works
in Niger’s capital of Niamey where she earns her living as
a hairdresser. Like many young Nigeriens, she was forced
to abandon her studies after secondary school due to
financial constraints. As she got older and began looking
for work, Kailou realized her job options were limited. She
felt like a burden on her family.
“My life was reduced to sleeping and eating. I had no job,
and I could not help my family,” she recalls.
It was at this time that she heard about free training
courses for dropouts and out-of-school youth to learn
skilled trades, such as cosmetology, carpentry, and
masonry. Kailou signed up.
“I took a two-year course in women’s hair styling. We
alternated between theoretical coursework and practical
internships. We also received funding for transportation
so that we could travel to our work placements,”
Kailou explains.
Today, with a comb and hair dryer in hand, Kailou happily
uses the knowledge she gained and hopes to open her
own hair salon one day.
Skills development for growth
Kailou is among 13,000 young Nigeriens (43 percent
female) who have benefited from the World Bank’s Skills
Development for Growth Project (PRODEC). Launched
in 2014 with $30 million from IDA, it is working to
improve the effectiveness of formal technical and
vocational training, short-term skills development,
and apprenticeship programs in priority sectors, such
as civil engineering and construction, food processing,
hospitality, agriculture, and telecommunications.
PRODEC addresses the deficit between jobs and skills
that block youth employability and development. Of the
350,000 young people entering the job market every
year, 90 percent lack the necessary qualifications for
available jobs.
I was hired by a large food processing
company because I interned there
and proved myself to them.
Hamsatou Idi Moussa, former intern of PRODECsupported
program
This skills shortage is compounded by the fact many in
the young workforce have not completed school beyond
the primary cycle. According UNESCO, over 197,000
Nigerien children left primary school prematurely in
2013, a leap from 55,000 recorded in 1999. The National
Statistical Institute put school enrollment at 76 percent
in 2016 (70 percent for girls and 82 percent for boys).
From school to work
In addition to supporting programs for out-of-school
youth like the one Kailou attended, PRODEC also
helps to improve the school-to-work transition. Some
3,500 young graduates of technical secondary education
programs and higher (half of whom are female) have
benefited from PRODEC-backed internship programs
that connect graduates with potential employers.
According to a 2017 National Employment Agency study,
70 percent of interns were able to use their experience as
a springboard to full time employment.
After completing her bachelor’s degree in logistics,
25-year-old Hamsatou Idi Moussa, struggled to find
work. An internship opportunity made all the difference.
“I was hired by a large food processing company because
I interned there and proved myself to them,” she says.
To continue PRODEC’s momentum and expand training
support to the agriculture and livestock production
sectors, the Government of Niger and the World Bank
signed an agreement for $50 million in additional IDA
financing in June 2018.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | BUILDING HUMAN CAPITAL 25

NIGERIA
Expanding immunization
coverage to eradicate polio
Improving routine immunization
coverage is critical to improving
child health and reducing infant
mortality. Incorporating vaccines
and other health incentives, like polio
vaccinations, into primary care is
helping to immunize more children
under five.
■
Blessing Sunday and her
son awaiting treatment
at the Karu Health
Center in Nasarawa.
© Chuka Agu / World Bank
26

“My friend said positive things about the care she
received at the facility, so I came for my prenatal, which
was very good,” says Blessing Sunday, a patient at the
Karu Health Center in Nasarawa, Nigeria. She now brings
her son to the center for his immunizations.
Like Sunday, millions of women across Nigeria are
benefiting from improving maternal and infant health
care. Since 2012, the World Bank has partnered with
the Government of Nigeria to support its mandate to
increase the delivery and use of high impact maternal
and child health services. Over $900 million in IDA
funding has facilitated projects like the Nigeria Program
to Support Saving One Million Lives, the performancebased
financed Nigeria State Health Investment Project,
and the Nigeria Polio Eradication Support Project.
Recent approval of $150 million in additional financing
from IDA18 is giving the Polio Eradication Support
Project the push it needs to staunch a recent recurrence
of polio cases and further improve routine immunization
coverage with oral polio vaccines to achieve a national
target of 85 percent coverage in 18 months.
Getting to zero on polio
The road to ending polio in Nigeria has been difficult. In
2006, the country had 1,222 confirmed cases, the most
in the world. Through concerted national efforts, cases
were reduced to just one in 2014, and by 2015, the World
Health Organization certified that Nigeria had halted
transmission. But hope vanished in 2016 when four new
polio cases were confirmed in the northeastern state of
Borno, itself beset with violent conflict.
While no new cases have been reported since, Nigeria
is using the additional IDA financing to improve
immunization coverage and accessibility to children
in conflict and insecure areas and to strengthen the
management of its polio immunization program.
My daughter’s vaccinations are
all current because I know how
important they are in keeping
her healthy.
New mother Bilkisu Awal
in partially accessible areas. These are also being used to
support mobile outreach teams, deployed to vaccinate
underserved children in internally displaced populations
and settlements.
Vaccines part of primary care
Nationwide, routine oral polio immunization coverage
is at 80 percent, a benchmark that has been met even
in 98 percent of the country’s high-risk areas, despite
persistent insecurity. Nearly 50 million children have
been immunized against polio under the project. Nigeria
has been able to achieve this—overcoming deeplyrooted
beliefs and misconceptions held by many—by
incorporating vaccines and health incentives, such as the
polio vaccination, into primary health care.
The goal is to vaccinate all children under five and reduce
the risk of child mortality.
New mother Bilkisu Awal chose to give birth at home
rather than the hospital, despite the quality of prenatal
care she received. Yet, she returned to her primary health
care center with her baby.
“I received prenatal care at a health care center; however,
due to our family’s belief, I delivered my daughter at
home. But her vaccinations are all current because
I know how important they are in keeping her healthy,”
says Awal.
It is calling on joint military and civilian task forces to
provide updates on the situation in inaccessible areas
and to serve as security escorts, and even vaccinators,
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | BUILDING HUMAN CAPITAL 27

■
Thanks to VUP
employment, small
business loans, and
training, Gaudance
Mukagasana has been
able to build a house
and a better life for
her family.
© Rogers Kayihura /
World Bank
RWANDA
Working her way out of poverty
through social protection
Rwanda is putting its people to work to get
out—and stay out—of extreme poverty through
its robust public works and social protection
program. It has employed 800,000 households
nationwide and has plans for more.
28

Gaudance Mukagasana felt completely lost when her
husband left, leaving her to raise their three children
alone. Young and unemployed, she moved in with her
mother and desperately tried to eke out a living on the
small family plot in Nduba in central Rwanda.
“He was our sole bread earner. It was like the world had
crumbled right before me,” remembers the now 40-yearold
Mukagasana.
A lifesaver came in 2013 when she was accepted in the
Vision 2020 Umurenge Program (VUP), the Government
of Rwanda’s flagship social protection program.
Supported by the World Bank through the Social
Protection Project, VUP aims to eradicate extreme
poverty and malnutrition, as well as strengthen
household resilience and promote socio-economic
transformation, by accelerating graduation from
extreme poverty.
Public works program
Mukagasana joined the VUP’s public works program,
which provides paid employment to able-bodied adults
from extremely poor households. With the salary she
earned participating in the construction of agricultural
terraces, she was able to cover her family’s basic needs
and even save a little. She eventually got basic business
training and a VUP micro-credit of RWF 60,000 (about
$70) to invest in vegetable farming to supplement
her income.
“To me, the training is the most important asset I
received,” Mukagasana says. “It instilled in me a sense
of confidence, opened my eyes to the many available
services and opportunities, and taught me how to use
them to improve my life.”
That she has. Mukagasana has since led her community
in launching a hybrid goat farming cooperative, a
venture that is paying off. She has been able to build a
comfortable house of her own and send her children to
college. Mukagasana has graduated from the program
with financial independence and a true sense of security.
To me, the training is the most
important asset I received… It opened
my eyes to the many available
services and opportunities.
Gaudance Mukagasana, resident of Nduba
and VUP graduate
Strengthening social protection system
Since the VUP’s inception in 2008, its public works
component has employed more than 800,000 households
and generated more than 40 million paid working days
for some 2,200 projects. Expanded public works were
launched in 2016 to offer flexible year-round work
schedules to moderately labor-constrained households
caring for children. Some 13,000 households, most
headed by women, are participating across 80 sectors.
The VUP’s direct support (cash transfer) component now
covers the entire country, with over 96,000 households
as of 2017.
According to Yasser El Gammal, the World Bank’s Country
Manager in Rwanda, “The World Bank partnership with
the Government of Rwanda has played a key role in
positioning Rwanda among global leaders in building an
integrated social protection system.”
As the Social Protection Project ended in 2017, the World
Bank reaffirmed its support with $80 million in IDA18
financing for a new Strengthening Social Protection
Project. Another $23 million in additional financing from
other sources was approved in April 2018. The project
is supporting the government in further improving the
coverage, quality, and delivery of social protection.
Its focus is on scaling up the VUP and introducing
innovations, such as home-based childcare and direct
support, to meet child and nutrition goals—particularly
to help overcome childhood stunting.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | BUILDING HUMAN CAPITAL 29

■
Uganda is committed
to maintaining a
progressive approach
to refugee management
and improving the
resilience and coping
ability of refugees and
their host communities.
© Dorte Verner / World
Bank
UGANDA
Renewing support and hope
in refugee host communities
With a refugee population of 1.5 million, Uganda
is the biggest refugee hosting nation in Africa
and third in the world. Often overlooked by
humanitarian aid, poor host communities are
receiving new attention and support to improve
their lives.
30

Edith Kwarisima is a resident of Kyarugaju, a poor village
near the Nakivale Refugee Settlement Camp in the
Isingiro district of southern Uganda. Refugees have been
coming to this camp since the 1960s, and 52-year-old
Kwarisima has grown up around them.
Uganda’s refugee policy is considered one of the most
progressive and generous in the world, providing free
healthcare and education in refugee settlements and
permitting refugees to move and work freely. Refugees
are allocated plots of land to settle and farm, which
has enabled more self-reliance and integration into
local communities.
This has brought benefits to the local communities
through increased demand for goods and services,
creating employment and income spill-over. But the
continued swell in refugee numbers since 2016, due
to conflicts in neighboring countries, has increasingly
strained social services and the environment as well as
the coping abilities of local host communities.
Efforts by the government and humanitarian
organizations have largely concentrated on refugees, but
more can be done for the communities that have given
them a new home.
“The refugees have good health facilities within an easily
accessible range and have drugs all the time. We don’t
have such privileges,” explains Kwarisima. “Getting
health services here is a nightmare. You can’t even make
a phone call during an emergency because we don’t
have network.”
Scaling up support for all
The Government of Uganda hopes to turn the tide
by improving service delivery, expanding economic
opportunities, upgrading municipal infrastructure, and
improving access to water, health, and education in refugee
hosting districts. Additional financing of $283 million from
the IDA18 regional sub-window for refugees and host
communities will help make it possible by scaling up support
to World Bank-financed projects already underway.
This project has given us a lot of hope
that things will be better for all of us.
Robert Kyomuhendo, resident of host
community Kyarugaju
So far, Uganda has accessed financing under the IDA subwindow
for two operations: $50 million for the Support to
Municipal Infrastructure Development Program to improve
physical planning, land tenure security, and small-scale
infrastructure; and $58 million for the Integrated Water
Management and Development Project to improve access
to water and sanitation services for several rural and urban
refugee hosting communities in Uganda.
Two other operations are still under preparation: The
Secondary Education Improvement Project and the
Development Response to Displacement Impacts Project
(DRDIP), a regional program in the Horn of Africa to
expand existing social and economic infrastructure and
boost income-generating activities for both refugees and
host communities.
Addressing needs of hosts
DRDIP in Uganda, supported by a $50 million IDA grant,
is working to protect the interests of host communities
in 11 districts, including Kwarisima’s. She and fellow
residents of Kyarugaju are pleased to see construction
begin on a new local health clinic, and they look forward
to new school classrooms to ease overcrowding and
other improved amenities.
Neighbor Robert Kyomuhendo says, “this project has given
us a lot of hope that things will be better for all of us.”
Robert Limlim, Director of DRDIP, agrees: “With more
support, we believe the lives of the locals who are hosting
refugees will improve.”
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | BUILDING HUMAN CAPITAL 31

WEST AFRICA AND THE SAHEL
Empowering women and girls
to unleash their potential
■
African governments
aim to empower girls to
harness their countries’
greatest asset:
their youth.
© Dorte Verner / World
Bank
Women constitute a well of untapped potential
XXX in Africa’s Sahel region. With continued
schooling, spaced pregnancies, skilled labor, and
better gender dynamics, women can contribute
much more to household income and national
economic growth.
32

Across the Sahel, it is difficult for a girl to continue her
schooling. After several years of primary education, she
might not be able to read and write because of the poor
quality of the education she has received. As she moves
into adolescence, her parents might see early marriage
as a way of protecting her from the social exclusion that
pregnancy outside of marriage would cause.
Settling their daughter into a new home is considered
a parent’s moral duty, and marriage a primary avenue
toward securing a daughter’s future. As a result, the
Sahel has the some of the world’s most alarming rates
of child marriage. In Niger, 77 percent of women aged 25
to 49 years old were married before their 18th birthday.
Child marriage is haram
In May 2018, in the context of the Sahel Women
Empowerment and Demographic Dividend (SWEDD),
influential Muslim scholars and religious and traditional
leaders from seven countries gathered in Nouakchott,
Mauritania, to develop action plans for leading
community-based dialogue on the challenges faced
by adolescent girls in order to promote healthier, more
productive families.
The event was hosted by the Ministry of Islamic Affairs
and Original Education and the Oulémas (theologians)
of Mauritania. It was preceded by a theological debate,
led by the University of Al-Azhar, on the position Islam
takes on issues related to child marriage, maternal
and child health, family planning, girls’ education,
gender-based violence, and women’s economic and
social empowerment.
Engaging with the Muslim scholars, the message from
the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar was clear: Child marriage in
the eyes of Islam is haram (forbidden by Allah).
Participants agreed to establish a network that runs
from a nation’s top scholars to religious leaders at
community level to focus on enabling girls’ social and
economic empowerment in rural areas of the Sahel. The
second phase of this effort will see a more comprehensive
inclusion of Christian and traditional leaders as agents
of positive change.
A major problem for girls is the nonapplication
of the precepts of religion,
which grants the same priority to the
teaching of boys and girls.
Saadani Marakchi, former Minister of Islamic
Affairs and Original Education, Mauritania
Championing the rights of women and girls
This is just one of the many interventions that the
countries involved in the SWEDD are undertaking to
champion the rights of women and girls. Initiated by
the presidents of Burkina Faso, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire,
Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Chad, SWEDD encourages
ministries to work across sectors and borders to help more
than 100,000 vulnerable girls stay in school, develop life
skills, and access economic empowerment opportunities.
World Bank financing for the SWEDD includes
$205 million from IDA, with additional IDA18 resources
planned to assist Benin and other neighboring countries.
The SWEDD is having an impact. For example, four
countries have used SWEDD-produced analyses to
revise national development plans with a stronger
focus on socio-economic policies and gender equity
measures that foster an enabling environment for the
demographic dividend.
Six countries have adopted a standard, coordinated
curricula tailored to low literacy learners and adolescent
girls in poor areas. Tens of thousands of young boys and
men across the region also are being engaged to develop
understanding and support of female autonomy as
involved brothers, husbands and fathers.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | BUILDING HUMAN CAPITAL 33

WEST AND CENTRAL AFRICA
Training African scientists
for Africa’s challenges
African centers of excellence are
giving a boost to African economies,
creating jobs, and supporting essential
research by training young graduates
in highly sought-after fields, such as
engineering, agronomy, science, and
technology.
■
Participants of the
first-ever Higher
Education Student Fair
crowd in to learn more
about ACE students’
innovations that
address Africa’s most
pressing development
challenges.
© Manivelle
34

In spring 2018, the campus of the Institute of Water and
Environmental Engineering (2iE) in Ouagadougou, the
capital of Burkina Faso, hosted an event unprecedented
in Africa. The very first Higher Education Student
Fair brought together academics from 22 centers of
excellence—located in universities in nine West and Central
African countries—to celebrate academic achievement
and present their students’ research and innovations to
the public.
Organized by the World Bank’s African Centers of
Excellence (ACE) Project, the event was an important
platform to share knowledge and inspire people, according
to Stéphane Olivier Yaméogo, an electrical engineering
student whose research project on solar pumping could
improve water supply systems in poor areas.
“I had always thought you had to go to Europe or elsewhere
for cutting-edge scientific training. But with what we are
doing at the 2iE Center of Excellence, there is no need to
be envious of those who go abroad,” he remarked.
The ACE Project
The ACE Project was launched in 2014 with IDA funding of
$165 million to help Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte
d’Ivoire, the Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo
establish 22 centers of excellence to develop the skills
needed to accelerate Africa’s development.
Every ACE is unique and, together, they are at the
forefront of applied research to produce a critical mass
of high-level specialists in scientific and technical fields
as varied as genomics and infectious diseases, water and
sanitation, biotechnology, reproductive health, agriculture
and environmental sustainability, and engineering.
With well-established partnerships with universities and
manufacturers in Africa and beyond, ACE students learn
from the best professors from the continent and the
diaspora, using state-of-the-art equipment.
Upon completion of their training,
our students are innovative,
competitive at the national, regional
and international levels, and rapidly
enter the labor market.
Harouna Karambiri, 2iE Professor and ACE
Coordinator
Eighteen programs across seven centers have
undergone the rigorous process to receive international
accreditation. This certifies that the programs, curricula,
competence goals, and teaching methods meet
international standards, including those of the German
Agency for Quality Assurance through Accreditation of
Study (AQAS), the Royal Society of Biology in the UK, and
the Quality Assurance Agency in France (HCRES).
Since being established, centers have expanded
their offerings, with 35 new programs attracting
over 6,500 students pursuing master’s degrees and
1,600 pursuing doctorates. Almost 17,000 national and
regional students have taken specialized short courses.
A dedicated effort to attract more women and girls to
the sciences has resulted in over 4,000 female students
enrolled in master’s, doctoral, and short courses.
The next phase
These results are encouraging, and the World Bank will
expand its support to establish new centers of excellence
and provide additional funding to particularly effective
ACEs at the regional and international levels.
A new project, called ACE Impact, is under preparation
and will be financed from IDA18 resources. The emphasis
will be on impact and productivity. Universities will be
able to strengthen their activities and envision other
opportunities in the continued effort to build the human
resources Africa needs to speed its development.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | BUILDING HUMAN CAPITAL 35

■
Many patients
were screened at
Redemption Hospital
in Monrovia, Liberia,
where Ebola hit hard
in 2014−2015.
© Dominic Chavez /
World Bank
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
Preparing for pandemics
to prevent them
After the Ebola outbreak in the Mano River
region of West Africa, the international
community saw the need to develop a
coordinated approach to anticipating and
addressing public health emergencies of
global concern. IDA18 is helping to strengthen
pandemic preparedness.
36

The 2014/15 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and
Liberia led to the deaths of over 11,000 people and cost the
region $2.2 billion, prompting the World Bank and African
countries to swear to never let it happen again. The World
Bank has been making good on that commitment to help
build national and regional pandemic preparedness and
response systems, with IDA18 as an essential vehicle for
urgently addressing gaps.
National Action Plans for Health Security
While most sub-Saharan African countries have some form
of emergency preparedness plan, these plans are often
obsolete or incomplete and may provide little practical
value during a major outbreak of disease. Implementing
a preparedness plan also requires coordinated planning,
surveillance, and detection, as well as a response across
multiple sectors (health and non-health, public and
private), many levels of government (national, provincial,
and community), and regional and global partners.
To bring more cohesion to the process, IDA18 funding is
supporting 17 African countries in developing evidencebased
pandemic preparedness plans—National Action
Plans for Health Security—and the governance and
institutional frameworks to enact them.
Countries like Liberia, Senegal, and Uganda have already
developed their plans, which draw on the findings of an
external evaluation of their national capacities to prevent,
detect, and respond to outbreaks of disease. World Bank
technical assistance helps countries craft their plans,
estimate costs, and develop a financing strategy to
implement them.
The national action plan serves as a coordination platform
to ensure interplay between multiple sectors and other
existing plans at all administrative levels. To support
countries in establishing institutional arrangements for
multi-sectoral health emergency preparedness, the World
Bank helps to review and strengthen existing coordinating
mechanisms and create new ones as needed.
The DRC’s recent experience with
Ebola reinforces the importance
of continued focus on pandemic
preparedness.
John Paul Clark, Senior Health Specialist,
World Bank
Investing in regional preparedness
IDA18 lending is also assisting countries and regional
institutions to more effectively prevent, detect, and respond
to public health emergencies. For example, the West Africa
Regional Disease Surveillance Systems Enhancement
Program, initiated under IDA17, continues to expand under
IDA18. Additional financing of $120 million will take the
program to Benin, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger, bringing the
total IDA commitment to $377 million for 11 West African
countries.
The World Bank is preparing a similar regional disease
surveillance project under IDA18 for parts of the Central
African region, including the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC), Chad, and Angola. It comes at a critical time for the
DRC, which has battled to contain recent outbreaks of Ebola.
Benefiting from lessons learned during the West Africa
outbreak, the DRC and its key partners moved quickly to
issue a $57 million, three-month joint Ebola response plan,
which the government and donors funded fully in two days.
The World Bank contributed by releasing $15 million from
an ongoing healthcare project for immediate Ebola response
and $12 million from the new multi-donor Pandemic
Emergency Financing Facility, marking the facility’s firstever
financial commitment.
According to John Paul Clark, World Bank Senior Health
Specialist, “The DRC’s recent experience with Ebola
reinforces the importance of continued focus on pandemic
preparedness and reminds us that outbreaks can and do
occur in very challenging environments where fragility,
conflict, and violence can undermine prevention and
complicate outbreak response.”
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | BUILDING HUMAN CAPITAL 37

STRENGTHENING
MARKETS
■
Rwanda’s conducive investment
climate is attracting manufacturers,
creating jobs, and helping to increase
foreign direct investment, including
this Volkswagen assembly plant in
Kigali.
© Urugwiro Village

BURUNDI
Restoring vital landscapes
for sustainable growth
■
IDA18 will help
restore 90,000
hectares, benefiting
80,000 households
and increasing land
productivity by
20 percent.
© Dave Proffer /
Wikimedia Commons
In a country where 90 percent of the
population relies on natural resources
for food, income, and jobs—especially
the coffee sector—efforts to restore
degraded landscapes are also restoring
hope for a better future.
40

In Burundi, coffee is a way of life. Over 600,000
families—half of the country’s households—rely on
the coffee sector for their livelihoods. It accounts for
90 percent of the country’s foreign exchange. Yet,
severe land degradation has led to a decrease in coffee
production from 40,000 tons in the mid-1990s to as
low as 5,700 tons in 2003. The World Bank estimates
that land degradation costs Burundi 4 percent of its
GDP annually. This has deeply affected people already
made vulnerable by natural disasters, pollution, and
sociopolitical tensions.
Managing natural assets, together
Land and lives are being transformed by innovative
approaches piloted by the $4.2 million Sustainable Coffee
Landscapes Project. Financed by the Global Environment
Facility and implemented by Burundi’s Ministry of
Environment, Agriculture and Livestock, the project
has benefited from interagency collaboration on coffee
certification, parks management, production of shadegrown
coffee, sector regulation, research, and training.
Together, agencies have empowered communities
who are now changing how Burundi’s natural assets
are managed.
“Communities have been totally involved in the
management and preservation of the nature that
surrounds them, and now understand that it is for their
own benefit,” explains Leonidas Nzigiyimpa, Chief Warden
of the Burundi Office for the Protection of the Environment
and Recipient of the 2018 National Geographic Buffett
Awards for Leadership in Conservation. “The future of
Burundi rests on the preservation of its nature.”
Since 2013, the project has reached more than
18,700 beneficiaries and has placed over 4,400 hectares
(ha) under sustainable land management practices.
More than 9,600 households, nearly half headed by
women, have adopted shade-grown coffee. This form
of polyculture brings multiple wins for the environment,
improves soil fertility, diversifies farm products, and
boosts income and food security.
We were enemies of the forest
reserve of Bururi, but now, we are its
best protectors.
Odette Nkurikiye, local Batwa community
member
The project has also piloted a community-based
agritourism program on sustainable coffee and a
nascent ecotourism initiative. The Bururi Forest Reserve
in Southern Burundi has hired members of the indigenous
Batwa community living nearby to help protect
chimpanzees and guide tourists, as well as legally harvest
food and medicinal plants from the forest. With these
earnings, the community has been able to save enough to
purchase land, marking the first time in Burundi’s history
that Batwas have been able to do so independently.
“We were enemies of the forest reserve of Bururi, but
now, we are its best protectors,’’ says community
member Odette Nkurikiye. “We now have jobs and have
even bought land. We want to tap into the opportunities
offered by our restored landscapes and stay out
of poverty.”
Scaling up resilience with IDA18
As this project ends in 2018, Burundi and the World Bank
aim to build on its successes. Under IDA18, the $30 million
Landscape Restoration and Resilience Project will scale
up the restoration of degraded landscapes and support
the sustainable management of the Bururi Forest Reserve
and the Kibira and Ruvubu National Parks. It is expected
to restore 90,000 ha, benefit 80,000 households, and
increase land productivity in targeted landscapes by
20 percent.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | STRENGTHENING MARKETS 41

■
Improved digital
connectivity will help
rural farmers get the
information they need
when they need it to
increase productivity.
© Dasan Bobo / World
Bank
CÔTE D’IVOIRE
eAgriculture solutions
for the digital age
As its digital environment continues to boom,
Côte d’Ivoire aims to expand services to farmers
in rural communities. Wider, more affordable
coverage and dedicated communication on
agricultural markets and the weather can boost
productivity and climate resilience.
42

The Côte d’Ivoire is the world’s top producer and exporter
of cocoa beans and raw cashew nuts. Its agriculture
sector accounts for 22 percent of GDP and more than
75 percent of exports, but a multitude of challenges
hinder growth—from low agricultural productivity,
high cost of inputs, and huge post-harvest losses to
inadequate use and lack of modern farming techniques.
Accurate and up-to-date agricultural data is also in
short supply. The latest available National Agricultural
Census dates back to 2001.
To help close these gaps, the Ivorian government has
launched a national eAgriculture strategy. It seeks to
modernize the country’s agricultural sector, reduce
food imports, and boost exports of cocoa, coffee, and
other produce through the integrated use of information,
communication, and technology (ICT) and its burgeoning
digital environment.
A digital revolution for agriculture
Côte d’Ivoire has gone from one of the world’s weakest
ICT countries—placing 130 out of 142 countries in the
World Economic Forum’s 2012 Global Information
Technology Report—to one of Africa’s rising stars.
In 2016, it ranked 72 out of 139 countries thanks to
strengthened legislation and regulations that support
the dissemination of information and communication
technologies within the economy. The mobile connection
penetration (number of total SIM cards divided by total
population) reached 126 percent at the end of 2017,
compared to 89 percent for the West Africa region and
77 percent for sub-Saharan Africa.
While many Ivorians have two or even three phone numbers,
some rural populations are still offline. The eAgriculture
strategy aims to build on the country’s robust digital
growth to extend mobile services and data sharing to rural
smallholder farmers. By increasing their connectivity to
the real-time market and weather information they need
to make critical planting and selling decisions, farmers will
be able to improve their productivity, climate resilience,
and income.
This project will ensure farmers have
timely information on key aspects
of the agriculture value chain.
Pierre Laporte, World Bank Country Director
for Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Togo
Connecting farmers and services
The World Bank approved $70 million in IDA funding
in May 2018 for the eAgriculture Project. It seeks to
upgrade digital infrastructure and equipment, modernize
agricultural information systems, and develop digital
applications for agriculture, among other activities.
It expects to benefit over six million smallholder farmers—
nearly a quarter of Côte d’Ivoire’s total population of
24 million people.
According to Pierre Laporte, World Bank Country
Director for Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Togo,
the agriculture sector is an important driver of Côte
d’Ivoire’s economy, but it has had only a modest impact
on income growth and poverty reduction in rural areas
due to its sensitivity to fluctuations in international
prices.
“This project will ensure farmers have timely information
on key aspects of the agriculture value chain, such as
the seed market, and public institutions can collect
agricultural and rural statistics for more efficient sector
polices and strategies,” explains Laporte.
Improved connectivity will also enable farmers to access
weather reports and other hydro-meteorological services
to adapt their agricultural practices, while public services
and communities vulnerable to the impacts of climate
change will be able to monitor water supply systems in
real time.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | STRENGTHENING MARKETS 43

■
Mechanized rice
harvesting at
GADCO Farms is
part of efficient
local processing
and packaging of
Aduanehene and COPAbrand
rice products.
© Geoff Anno / GCAP
GHANA
Promoting sustainable
commercial agriculture
To reduce reliance on food imports and
satisfy increasing food demands with
domestic production, Ghana is focusing on its
agribusiness sector. Domestic and international
agribusinesses—and the smallholder farmers
they contract—are benefiting from investments
to improve irrigated land and yields.
44

In food markets and stores across Ghana, it is easy to
find Aduanehene and COPA rice products. From farm
to market, this local brand is homegrown and a shining
example of how Ghana is working to build the productive
capacity of agribusinesses and smallholder farmers.
The Global Agri-Development Company Ghana Ltd. (GADCO)
is the producer, processor, and distributor of Aduanehene and
COPA rice. It contracts smallholder farmers (outgrowers) to
produce rice to feed its processing plants. The arrangement
provides outgrowers a ready market for their produce and
removes the headache of marketing and the risk of postharvest
losses.
Better irrigation, better yields
In the South Tongu District of the Volta Region, GADCO
has 1,500 hectares (ha) of farmland, of which 300 ha
is under cultivation through an outgrower arrangement
with the nearby Fieve community. In 2014, GADCO
acquired financial assistance from the World Bankfinanced
Ghana Commercial Agriculture Project (GCAP)
to further develop its operations in the area.
Funding was provided through the CGAP’s Matching
Grants Scheme, which provides grants to eligible
agribusinesses working with outgrowers for land
preparation and operating capital. One of GCAP’s key
missions is to encourage both domestic and international
agribusinesses to invest in irrigation schemes
rehabilitated under the project. This will help boost
productivity and production of key staples—such as rice,
maize, and soybeans—and other high value commodities
for the domestic and export market.
With IDA funding totaling $150 million, including an
injection of $50 million in additional financing under
IDA18, the project is expected to increase irrigated area
by over 8,000 ha and benefit some 30 medium and large
scale agribusinesses and 14,000 smallholder farmers in
target areas.
Project support has helped me
increase my income from farming
activities, and now I have been able
to build a house.
Bernice Atakli, five-hectare rice outgrower
in Fieve
To date, over 6,000 ha of farmland have been developed
where crop yields have jumped: rice has gone from a
baseline of 1.5 metric tons per ha to 3.8 metric tons per
ha in 2017. New irrigation systems and post-harvest
warehouses have been built and over 9,300 smallholder
farmers (40 percent of whom are women) have been
directly supported through nucleus farms to improve
their agronomic practices.
Benefits for farmers and agribusinesses
alike
In Fieve, both the community and GADCO have benefitted
from GCAP grant financing. GADCO was able to
develop 120 ha of land, erect storage facilities, connect
electricity to its local processing plant, install a pumping
station for rice field irrigation, and build the capacity of
90 outgrowers.
Bernice Atakli, a five-hectare rice outgrower who also
grows maize, peppers, and cassava, says the support
“has helped me increase my income from farming
activities, and now I have been able to build a house.”
Two-hectare rice outgrower, Gabriel Djamesi, says,
“Through the GCAP support with GADCO, I have been
able to buy two milking cows, which serves as another
source of income.”
Tensions between GADCO and the community have also
diminished thanks to the investments and social safeguards
support provided by GCAP. For GADCO, the injection of
capital into the company’s operations has motivated it to
expand and bring more outgrowers on board.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | STRENGTHENING MARKETS 45

■
Through revenue
obtained in agriculture,
Diallo diversified his
activities and now owns
a water packaging and
distribution operation.
© Vincent Tremeau /
World Bank
GUINEA
Investing in agricultural
productivity yields shared
prosperity
Rice is a staple food in Guinea, but low yields
make the country dependent on rice imports it
can ill afford. The nation as a whole, and farmers
in particular, are benefiting from better seeds
and innovations in crop management.
46

Ousmane Diallo is a 35-year-old university graduate with
a degree in sociology. He owns an eight-hectare farm in
Mandiana, one of the most remote locations in Guinea
(over 700 kilometers east of the capital Conakry) and
better known for mining than farming. Over 80 percent
of the local population works in the mining industry. But
not Diallo.
Facing limited job prospects after university, he decided
to invest in agriculture because he “understood the
agricultural potential of the region.”
He started in 2014 with rice, maize, and vegetables to
meet high demand, but poor seed quality led to poor
harvests. He was able to turn to the World Bank-financed
West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAPP)
for support, and today, Diallo can produce two tons of
rice per hectare, compared to less than half of that (800
kilograms) four years ago.
Improving rice seeds
Guinea is among 13 West African countries participating
in WAAPP, a regional project that aims to generate and
disseminate improved agricultural technologies and
intensify their adoption in sectors considered a priority.
For Guinea, that is rice.
Since 2011, WAAPP has helped Guineans adopt new
crop varieties, improve crop management practices, and
modernize small-scale food processing technologies.
It has also strengthened national seed production and
distribution systems to ensure the availability and use of
good quality, certified seeds.
Through an initial IDA grant of $9 million, the program in
Guinea has contributed to improving the living conditions
of seed producers, who have been able to realize an
additional GNF 4 million ($440) in income per hectare of
rice each season. This represents a significant amount
given the fact that the minimum monthly wage is GNF
440,000 ($45).
People thought I was crazy for
getting involved in agriculture,
but now I am proving them wrong.
Ousmane Diallo, agriculture entrepreneur
in Mandiana
Over 120,000 direct beneficiaries (40 percent women)
have seen their incomes rise by 30 percent, and laborers
and local artisans beyond Guinea’s borders have
benefitted from increased employment opportunities.
Rice marketing operations are estimated to have
generated about GNF 10 billion ($1.1 million). The use
of improved seeds has created a surplus of more than
85,000 tons of unhusked paddy rice worth $14 million,
equivalent to 10 percent of Guinea’s annual rice imports.
Cultivating wealth
With the revenue he has gained from agriculture, Diallo
has diversified. He obtained a loan for GNF 26 million
($2,800) to buy a water packaging machine and, now,
supplies drinking water to several mining companies.
He employs dozens of people full time and seasonally.
“People thought I was crazy for getting involved in
agriculture, but now I am proving them wrong. My
objective is to inspire and train other young people,”
says Diallo, who plans to industrialize his operations and
expand into livestock breeding.
Guinea is consolidating its gains in the rice sector and is
now turning its attention to other agricultural sectors.
The World Bank has provided additional funding of
$23 million from IDA18 to support innovations in cassava,
soybeans, and other vegetable crops, as well as goat and
poultry breeding and fish farming.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | STRENGTHENING MARKETS 47

■
Malisema Masheane
is the proud owner of
Serumula Pig Farm,
which she launched
with a grant from the
Smallholder Agriculture
Development Project.
© Elita Banda / World
Bank
LESOTHO
Championing agricultural
entrepreneurs
More than half of Lesotho’s citizens live in rural
areas, and the majority engage in subsistence
agriculture. Because the urban economy
has limited ability to absorb new entrants
to its labor market, expanding agricultural
productivity and profitability is essential.
48

Ntuba Masena is the owner of a thriving vegetable and
fruit drying company in the market town of Hlotse in
northern Lesotho. Faced with retirement from nursing,
and looking for additional sources of income, she
learned about produce drying at a farming workshop she
attended. The idea of starting a value-added business
appealed to her, so she bought a few bags of apples, a
fruit slicer, and began her journey into entrepreneurship.
At first, Masena was sun drying her produce, but adverse
weather patterns hindered her work and business
suffered. She applied for and received a grant from
the World Bank-supported Smallholder Agriculture
Development Project (SADP), which she used to buy a
dehydrator. With the new equipment, drying times are
down—apples take just four hours to dry rather than a
day and half—and profits are up.
Improving productivity, marketability
Since 2012, SADP has provided a combination of
competitive grants and technical assistance to help
smallholder farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs like
Masena increase productivity and market opportunities.
Over 55,000 people across four of Lesotho’s ten districts
have benefitted from the project. This includes over
16,800 grant recipients, half of whom are women who
have ventured into pig and poultry breeding, climatesmart
vegetable production, and other smallholder
agricultural activities.
Malisema Masheane is one of them. A long-held love
for pig farming was always thwarted by a lack of funds
and time as she juggled two jobs to make ends meet. In
2016, she heard about SADP and successfully applied
for grant support. With the $21,000 she received from
the project, she bought 10 sows and one boar, built a
barn, and installed a water system linked to a borehole.
With her dream realized, Masheane plans to expand and
encourages others to follow her lead.
A lot of people—men and women—
are very impressed by this work…
I always encourage them to find
opportunities along the value chain.
Malisema Masheane, owner and operator
of Serumula Pig Farm
“A lot of people—men and women—are very impressed by
this work and would like to own pig farms of their own.
I always encourage them to find opportunities along
the value chain so we can all benefit from the industry,”
she says.
Expanding support to more districts
Agriculture is an important source of employment and
food in Lesotho. More than half of Lesotho’s citizens live
in rural areas, and the majority engages in smallholder
subsistence agriculture. Because the urban economy
has a limited ability to absorb new entrants to its labor
market, agriculture plays a major role in Lesotho‘s
development strategy.
SADP has shown that opportunities exist for developing
commercially viable smallholder agriculture, especially as
urbanization, climate change vulnerability, and changes
in consumption patterns force the agricultural sector
to adapt. In 2018, the $24.5 million project received
an additional $10 million in IDA financing to expand its
support to three more districts and add new focuses on
climate-smart production and agribusiness initiatives.
Molapo Mahala, Lesotho’s Minister of Agriculture
and Food Security, agrees that promoting the
commercialization of smallholder agriculture has gained
a great deal of traction, and “these added funds will
focus on continuing to increase the capacity of farmers
in Lesotho to build more productive, climate resilient,
commercial agriculture systems.”
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | STRENGTHENING MARKETS 49

MALAWI
Investing in irrigation
to realize farming potential
The largest IDA investment ever
made in Malawi is helping to transform
agricultural productivity through
irrigation, lay the foundations for
commercialization, and improve the
management of natural resources
in the Shire Valley.
■ Over 48,000
households comprising
around 220,000 people
in Malawi’s Shire
Valley are expected to
benefit from new and
improved irrigation and
agricultural services.
© ILRI / Mann
50

Malawi is home to 17.6 million people, 85 percent of whom
live in rural areas and mostly engage in low productivity,
rain-fed subsistence agriculture. Smallholder farmers
produce 75 percent of Malawi’s agricultural output—a
sector that represents 30 percent of GDP.
Lives and livelihoods are hinged on the short rainy season
from November to March. When the rains come late, fall too
hard, or stop early, agricultural output and food security
suffer nationwide. Even with its rivers and Lake Malawi,
the second largest lake in Africa, the availability and
reliability of surface water in Malawi varies both between
wet and dry seasons and from year to year. Infrastructure
for water storage is low even by regional standards.
Overcoming the economic impacts of climate and water
shocks is especially important in the disaster-prone
districts of the Shire Valley in southern Malawi, where
over 80 percent of the population lives below the national
poverty line, and frequent floods and droughts pose the
threat of famine.
Unlocking the Shire Valley’s development
Yet, the Shire Valley’s fertile soils have potential—one
that large scale commercial sugar estates are realizing
thanks to commercial irrigation. The Government of
Malawi seeks to unlock development in the area and take
better advantage of the private sector’s presence and the
area’s proximity to Malawi’s commercial hubs of Blantyre
and Tete, and the Nacala railroad in Mozambique.
The Shire Valley Transformation Program aims to boost
Malawi’s agricultural productivity through irrigation, lay
the foundations for commercialization, and improve the
management of natural resources in the Chikwawa and
Nsanje districts of the Shire Valley. IDA18 funding of $160
million plus $5.6 million from the Global Environment
Facility Trust Fund are supporting the first phase of the
three-phase, 14-year program, estimated at a total cost
of $560 million.
The overall program will provide irrigation to over
40,000 hectares by gravity-fed water delivery, eliminating
the need for electricity for pumping water from the Shire
The valley can finally be transformed
into the most productive agricultural
region of the country.
Paramount Chief Lundu of Chikwawa
River. It will increase agricultural production, provide
drinking water services, and improve the sustainable
management of natural resources, including wetlands and
protected areas, while enhancing tourism potential.
“We have waited all our lives for this project… the valley
can finally be transformed into the most productive
agricultural region of the country and provide better
livelihoods to the 48,000 benefitting households,” says
Paramount Chief Lundu of Chikwawa.
Beyond subsistence farming
With more reliable access to water and support, Malawi
hopes to take agriculture beyond the food security
agenda to commercial agricultural investments that will
sustainably pull people out of poverty.
“The beauty of the whole program is that it will engage
the smallholder farmers to modernize and commercialize
agriculture. We ultimately anticipate a half billion-dollar
benefit to the economy,” says Joseph Mwanamvekha,
Malawi’s Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Water
Development.
The program’s first phase will deliver modern, sustainable
irrigation services and support services in agriculture,
aquaculture, and livestock production. It will help
farmers secure land and water tenure and assist them
in various aspects of developing commercial farming.
Crop diversification away from sugarcane is expected
to create more opportunities for agro-processing
enterprises and traders.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | STRENGTHENING MARKETS 51

■
Rusty Guembo and
partner Gervais Kondo
have been able to
transform their small
poultry venture into
a flourishing agroindustrial
enterprise.
© Franck Bitemo /
World Bank
REPUBLIC OF CONGO
Building an agribusiness:
One farmer’s journey from
mortar to mixer
Over 360,000 Congolese farmers and livestock
producers have benefited from investments in
agricultural productivity and improved market
access. New IDA funding targets 500,000
more farmers, promoting agribusinesses and
agricultural entrepreneurs.
52

“I’ve always dreamed of being my own boss,” states Rusty
Guembo, who is pursuing his ambition in a society in
which a career in the civil service is deemed prestigious.
At 45 years old, this Congolese engineer, a graduate of
the Institut de développement rural in Brazzaville, runs
a cooperative of market gardeners and poultry farmers,
Agro 4, with his business partner.
Guembo and three friends launched the venture in 2000
with a makeshift chicken coop in one room of his house.
The early days were tough.
“To be able to feed our chickens every day, we used a
mortar to grind the grains then filter them through
a sieve, before using a shovel to mix them with other
ingredients. For four years we worked without making
the slightest profit,” he explains. Two of his business
partners gave up.
Guembo and remaining friend, Gervais Kondo, persevered
and, between 2004 and 2006, they formalized their
cooperative and received small amounts of funding to
increase their stock and build capacity in small-scale
poultry feed production.
A decisive boost
The turning point came in 2010 in the form of a grant
from the World Bank-financed Agricultural Development
and Rural Roads Rehabilitation Project (ADRRP). It
allowed the entrepreneurs to purchase a tilting mixer
worth CFAF 5 million (about $9,000), with a capacity of
1,250 kilograms per hour.
“This machine revolutionized our work!” Guembo
explains. “In four months, we had tripled our poultry feed
production to 60 metric tons per month.”
Livestock feed production became Agro 4’s core activity
and, in 2012, they purchased a second machine to
meet growing demand. Today, the cooperative has 10
livestock producers, employs dozens of day laborers,
and owns a fleet of vehicles for pick-ups and deliveries.
Headquartered in one of the largest markets in Brazzaville,
Our greatest pride is in developing
a vision and staying true to values
that we hold dear.
Rusty Guembo, co-founder of Agro 4 in
Brazzaville
it has branches in Pointe-Noire and the departments of
Bouenza and Plateaux and plans to expand operations.
In 2017, Agro 4’s livestock feed production posted revenue
of approximately CFAF 700 million (around $1.2 million).
But Guembo and Kondo say their greatest pride is in
“developing a vision and staying true to values that
we hold dear, particularly by promoting high-quality,
affordable local production.”
Increasing productivity responsibly
Along with Guembo and Kondo, over 360,000 people
(51 percent of them women) benefited from ADRRP,
which helped double the yield of several food crops. It ran
from 2008 to 2017 with $22.5 million in IDA financing
and $28 million from the Government of the Republic of
Congo (ROC).
The new Commercial Agriculture Development Support
Project will build on these successful outcomes. Entirely
financed by IDA18 for a total of $100 million over five
years, the project aims to improve the productivity of
agricultural sectors and market access for producer
groups and agro-industrial micro, small, and medium
enterprises. It targets 500,000 farmers and livestock
producers nationwide.
Guembo recognizes the project’s potential in changing
the way Congolese citizens view agriculture “so that they
no longer only see it as a subsistence activity, but as a
promising entrepreneurial undertaking.”
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | STRENGTHENING MARKETS 53

■
An artisanal miner
carefully sifts through
gravel and rocks to find
that illusive diamond.
© Roy Maconachie /
University of Bath
SIERRA LEONE
Bringing transparency and trust
to the mining sector
Sierra Leone has the mineral and potential oil
reserves to underpin much higher GDP growth.
New policies and regulations have brought more
transparency to the mining industry so the
government can track activities and small-scale
miners can build capacity.
54

Ishmael Sesay leads Youth in Mining, a group of young
artisanal miners in the diamond-rich district of Kono in
eastern Sierra Leone. He entered the trade with friends
after completing secondary school.
“Eight of us came together and started mining for
diamonds. The field was crowded but we were determined
to make a difference because mining was our only source
of livelihood,” Sesay explains.
Like many other artisanal miners in Kono District, Sesay
and his team lacked the skills needed to evaluate the
true worth of their finds. In 2017, they participated in a
Skills for Development workshop organized by the World
Bank, in collaboration with Sierra Leone’s Ministry of
Mines and Mineral Resources, to learn about sustainable
mining technologies and operations.
“We learned how to value our diamonds before we sell
them,” Sesay says. “You can find a big stone but if you
don’t know its value, it is like giving your wealth to
another person.”
Building the foundation for improved
governance
The workshop was part of World Bank-financed
Extractive Industries Technical Assistance Project.
During the first phase of the project (2009-2016), Sierra
Leone laid the foundation for improved governance in the
mining sector.
The most notable achievement was the creation of
the National Minerals Agency, the sector’s regulatory
and geological survey institution. New policies and
regulatory instruments were also enacted to address
issues of transfer pricing, revenue management,
dispute resolution, harmonization of land policies, skills
development, and improved environmental management
in the sector.
The second phase of the project now is underway, with a
$20 million IDA18 grant to further strengthen legal and
regulatory frameworks, increase geological knowledge,
and support artisanal mining.
You can find a big stone but if you
don’t know its value, it is like giving
your wealth to another person.
Ishmael Sesay, artisanal miner in Kono District
Formalizing artisanal mining
The majority of the artisanal mining activities in Kono
and other districts are still being carried out on an illegal
basis, which is why organizations like the Diamond
Development Initiative (DDI) Sierra Leone are coming
onboard to ensure the formalization of the artisanal
mining sector. It is teaching miners how to comply with
international standards governing the production and
marketing of diamonds.
“We want the mining sector to be regulated so that
the government can receive the requisite taxes from
operations to support public administration,” explains
Joseph S. Mboka, DDI Program Manager. “We also want
the diamonds to be legally mined so that people do not
use them to fuel conflicts. Once they are regulated and
the government can take note of the diamonds that are
being extracted, we know that these will be responsibly
channeled to the external market.”
The project is also supporting a baseline study on
artisanal mining and miners and an airborne geophysical
survey of the entire country. The goal is to develop
modern geological maps of Sierra Leone to aide a more
strategic approach to mineral exploration.
The people of Sierra Leone, and especially artisanal
mining communities, will benefit from improved
environmental management and social protection in the
sector, as well as more equitable distribution of wealth
from mining operations, including increased access
to employment.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | STRENGTHENING MARKETS 55

■
Tanzania has one of
the highest revenueto-tourist
ratios in
sub-Saharan Africa.
© Daniel Mira-Salama /
World Bank
TANZANIA
Expanding sustainable tourism
to drive local development
and conservation
Tanzania is one of the most popular tourist
destinations for experiencing Africa’s unique
wildlife. It is developing its Southern Circuit
to diversify its tourism sector, enhance
conservation, and bring new economic growth
to the area.
56

Tanzania has built a thriving tourism industry around
its wildlife and other natural resources. The country is
home to world-renowned reserves, such as the Serengeti,
and other national parks and reserves for game, marine
life, and forests. In 2015, it received nearly 1.2 million
international visitors, more than double the number
recorded in 2000. As a main contributor to foreign
currency, tourism generated $4.8 billion in revenue,
roughly 10 percent of GDP.
But its wildlife tourism sector is concentrated around
what is known as the Northern Circuit in northwest
Tanzania, most notably the Serengeti and Mount
Kilimanjaro national parks and the Ngorongoro
conservation area. These destinations are showing signs
of stress and limitations to their carrying-capacity,
placing the government’s strategy of low-volume, highvalue
tourism in jeopardy.
Developing the Southern Circuit
The government has embarked on developing tourism in
the Southern Circuit to attract visitors to the area and
expand its contribution to the economy. The Circuit is richly
endowed with national parks, including the Ruaha National
Park, the largest park in East Africa, and the Selous Game
Reserve, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The area has much to offer but is challenged by limited
infrastructure and underdeveloped roads, poaching, the
mismanagement of water resources upstream of the Ruaha
park, and few links between tourism and local livelihoods.
Like much of the country, Tanzania’s southern region
is seeing conflict erupt over natural resources, with an
expanding population highly dependent on agriculture for
its livelihood. Climate change and scarce water resources
also intensify pressure on precious ecosystems.
A project called REGROW
The government is addressing this through the Resilient
Natural Resource Management for Tourism and Growth
Project (REGROW). In June 2018, the World Bank
Among the tasks we shall undertake
is to educate communities on the
importance of conservation and
the roles they must play.
Hamisi Kigwangalla, Minister for Natural
Resources and Tourism of Tanzania
approved $150 million in IDA funding to support it,
involving the World Bank’s transport, ICT, agriculture,
and urban sectors.
REGROW aims to improve the management of natural
resources and tourism assets in southern Tanzania
and help communities there gain access to alternative
livelihoods. Some 20,000 households located near
protected wildlife areas are expected to benefit. More
efficient irrigation and agricultural production methods
will help another 20,000 farming households in the Great
Ruaha River sub-basin.
Capacity building will also support government agencies
and officials working on water, agriculture, and land
management, wildlife, tourism, and protected area
management. Tourism operators and related businesses
will benefit from increased revenue, with an emphasis on
providing opportunities for women and youth.
Hamisi Kigwangalla, Minister for Natural Resources
and Tourism, believes REGROW will not only help make
Tanzania’s tourism industry more diversified and robust,
it will heighten community awareness and involvement in
conversation efforts.
“Iringa is one of the southern regions where we are facing
many conservation challenges, including poaching and
the poisoning of wild animals. Among the tasks we shall
undertake under this project is to educate communities
on the importance of conservation and the roles they
must play,” he explains.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | STRENGTHENING MARKETS 57

■
Students at the
Regional Center of
Excellence in Avian
Sciences (CERSA) hope
their research obtains
practical results that
poultry breeders and
producers can apply
daily.
© Eric Kaglan / World
Bank
TOGO
Revolutionizing Africa’s poultry
industry
While egg and poultry meat production has
experienced explosive growth worldwide
over the past two decades, Africa provides
just 4 percent of global poultry products and
consumption rates are low. Advanced research
in avian science seeks to to strengthen the
poultry sector.
58

Africa is home to 15 percent of the world’s population,
yet it has some of the lowest poultry product production
and consumption rates. The average African eats 45 eggs
and 3 kilograms of poultry meat each year, compared
to 145 eggs and 14 kilograms throughout the rest of the
world. The African poultry sector suffers from inadequate
financing, a lack of high-level technical expertise, and
input-related issues.
The Regional Center of Excellence in Avian Sciences
(CERSA, Centre d’Excellence Regional sur les Sciences
Aviaires) at the University of Lomé in Togo aims to
reverse that trend. Established in 2014 under the World
Bank-financed African Centers of Excellence Project,
CERSA seeks to strengthen and promote the poultry
sector—and boost food security in West and Central
Africa—through investments in research and training
and by forging partnerships with manufacturers.
Only research institute for avian science
CERSA is the only institution in the region engaged in
the development of high-level expertise (master’s and
doctoral degrees) and applied and basic research in
avian sciences. As of June 2018, 25 doctoral students,
including six women, and 76 master’s students, including
15 women, from 11 West and Central African countries
were enrolled at CERSA.
“We have a specialized program that covers the entire
poultry farming value chain at the scientific, technical,
and technological levels, including production, processing,
biotechnology, genetics, and marketing. We plan to
introduce a new sector soon to integrate the sociological
aspects,” says Professor Kokou Tona, CERSA’s Director.
In a bid to dispel the misconception that poultry products
are a luxury in Africa, Tekando Komlan and Agblékpé
Agbessi, two students from Togo, have focused their
research on egg and poultry meat processing.
“We found that a micronutrient-poor diet was the cause
of malnutrition among many children. We focused on
processing eggs into powder to help address proteinenergy
deficiencies,” explains Komlan.
We have a specialized program
that covers the entire poultry
farming value chain at the scientific,
technical, and technological levels.
Kokou Tona, Director of CERSA
Poultry farmer Georges Sanvee believes this type of
innovation can revolutionize the sector and that producers
like him “are relying heavily on CERSA’s research to
improve our practices to help secure better outcomes.”
Sanvee has benefited from CERSA short-term practical
training sessions that showed him how to improve his
chicken feed and increase his hens’ egg production.
In March 2018, CERSA’s influence and quality of work
were further validated when it obtained its five-year,
unconditional international accreditation from the Haut
conseil de l’évaluation de la recherche et de l’enseignement
supérieur (HCERES), an independent body tasked with
assessing higher education and research institutions.
Beyond academics
CERSA is also focused on modernizing and industrializing
Africa’s poultry sector through strategic partnerships
with major European manufacturers. Together, they
aim to identify poultry strains best suited to the region,
improve feed quality, and boost production systems.
CERSA is also planning collaboration with SEDIMA, a
Senegalese industrial poultry processor, to promote
South-South learning and knowledge sharing.
This all points to potential increases in poultry
productivity, availability, and accessibility by the
poor. Additional IDA18 financing of $4 million will help
CERSA enhance its impact on the sector’s development
across Africa.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | STRENGTHENING MARKETS 59

■
As populations grow
in West Africa, so too
does the need for more
housing at affordable
rates.
© Arne Hoel / World
Bank
WEST AFRICA
Opening paths to homeownership
for the underserved
In the eight francophone countries that make
up the West African Economic and Monetary
Union (WAEMU), housing is scarce, demand is
skyrocketing, and costs are high. The World
Bank Group is helping to expand access to
housing finance for lower-income groups.
60

Over the next two decades, WAEMU’s population will
nearly double, mostly in urban areas. This trend is
aggravating a large housing deficit, which mostly affects
lower-income groups in a region of widespread poverty.
Some 800,000 new housing units are needed every
year, yet WAEMU banks only issue about 15,000 new
mortgages annually.
Building up regional mortgage company
To expand housing finance in the region, the World Bank is
providing a suite of services and investments to support
the Caisse Régionale de Refinancement Hypothécaire
(CRRH). Founded in 2012, CRRH is a majority-private
regional mortgage financing company. It issues long-term
bonds in capital markets and lends these funds to financial
institutions that, in turn, provide long-term housing loans
to consumers. Its member shareholders are 54 commercial
banks, as well as development finance institutions
like the West African Development Bank (BOAD), its
largest shareholder.
In 2017, IDA approved a scale-up credit of $130 million
to BOAD on-lent to CRRH, marking the first use of IDA’s
Scale-up Facility for a regional organization. The credit
will enable CRRH to refinance mortgage loans below
$26,000 and allow banks to obtain long-term funding
at below-market rates, providing incentive to serve the
low-income segment.
IDA’s assistance is also enabling CRRH to refinance
small housing loans (of less than $17,000) issued by
micro-finance institutions that previously did not
have access to CRRH funding and do not have longterm
funds. Microfinance institutions serve informally
employed households, who now will be able to borrow
for homeownership.
Another $25 million IDA grant will support housing policy
reform to expand housing supply in WAEMU countries.
IDA technical assistance will help accelerate the pace
of affordable housing production and address key
constraints for private developers.
IDA financing along with the recent
IFC investment into CRRH will
strengthen our business model and
our ability to mobilize long-term
resources to expand affordable
housing finance.
Christian Agossa, General Manager of Caisse
Régionale de Refinancement Hypothécaire
(CRRH)
The IDA intervention is coupled with investments by the
World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC).
In 2017, with the support of the IDA18 Private Sector
Window, IFC invested CFAF 5 billion ($9 million) in CRRH’s
CFAF 25 billion ($45 million) local currency 12-year bond.
Through it, CRRH was able to lengthen the term of its
loans to financial institutions, which in turn, lengthened
the maturity of mortgages and improved affordability.
IFC now plans to anchor a 15-year bond to support
CRRH’s efforts to progressively extend its bond maturity
terms to 20 years by 2020. IFC advisory services will
also support CRRH member institutions in improving
mortgage lending and underwriting processes.
Improving housing affordability
As of January 2018, CRRH had issued seven local currency
bonds of 10- or 12-year maturity in regional capital
markets and refinanced about 8,000 bank mortgages
since inception. A model shows that extending housing
loan tenors from the current 8 to 15 years reduces
monthly mortgage payments by 46 percent; a 20-year
loan tenor reduces payments by 72 percent.
The World Bank expects for every $1 it invests in
strengthening CRRH, $5 of private financing will come
through the bond market. Some 50,000 businesses and
families are expected to obtain new mortgage loans,
200,000 people to get better shelter, and 250,000
housing sector jobs to be created.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | STRENGTHENING MARKETS 61

■
Charging a cell phone
is easy with solar home
systems that bring
electricity into off-grid
homes.
© Azuri Technologies Ltd.
WEST AFRICA
Catalyzing off-grid solar markets
Some 200 million West Africans—nearly half
of the region’s population—do not have access
to electricity. Electrification rates of public
institutions like schools and health centers
are also low. Off-grid solar technology can
transform this bleak reality into one of access.
62

For those living without access to a modern energy
source, educational and economic opportunities are
constrained by the number of hours of natural light. Dayto-day
quality of life and health are negatively impacted.
Low-quality, polluting lighting sources, such as the
kerosene lamps, emit hazardous fumes that can cause
serious health problems, while reoccurring fuel costs cut
deeply into scarce funds.
In West Africa, about 75 percent of the rural population
is living without access to grid electricity in areas to
which the grid would be slow and expensive to arrive, if at
all. But thanks to modern, high-quality off-grid lighting
and energy products, people no longer need to wait in
darkness, or by the fumes of a kerosene lamp. A typical
solar home system can now power the same services
that are used by grid-connected neighbors, while larger
standalone systems can power public institutions, like
schools and health centers, and even be put to productive
use for activities like water pumping.
Lighting Africa goes west
Since 2009, the joint International Finance Corporation–
World Bank Lighting Africa program has been enabling
access to off-grid solar lighting and energy products
in sub-Saharan Africa by catalyzing the markets that
deliver them. Today, nearly 29 million people, mostly
in East Africa, are meeting their basic electricity needs
through products that meet the program’s quality
standards. By using these products rather than fuelbased
lighting and energy sources, 3.7 million metric
tons of greenhouse gas emissions have been avoided—
the CO 2
equivalent of taking nearly 800,000 cars off the
road for a year.
IDA18 is contributing to this success with about
$150 million going to projects supporting electricity
access through standalone solar across five countries,
primarily in East Africa. It is also helping to take Lighting
Africa to the western part of the continent. IDA18 is
preparing a program that seeks to create a unified
regional market in West Africa across 19 countries.
Before we started using quality
verified solar, we used kerosene
lamps for light. We walked two
hours to the city and paid 3 or 4 birr
to charge our phones. Now we are
charging our phones at home.
Tafete Belete, resident of Werota, South Gondar,
Ethiopia, East Africa
The Regional Off-Grid Electrification Project (ROGEP)
will work along several streams to kick-start the market,
including support for an enabling economic environment
for quality-verified products, market research, educating
consumers, and support for access to finance, among
other activities. Preparations include developing pilot
initiatives to electrify schools, health centers, water
pumps, and street lights in Niger and Nigeria.
Keeping pace with technology
ROGEP seeks to replicate what worked in East Africa
and improve upon it. Emphasis will be on supporting
local entrepreneurs to allow them to capture the
benefits of this vibrant market. Dedicated support for
underrepresented categories of entrepreneurs, such as
women, will also be offered.
As advancements in technology push past the boundaries
of what once was impossible, Lighting Africa is keeping
pace. Alongside simple, affordable solar lanterns that
already have the power to transform lives by replacing
hazardous kerosene fumes, ROGEP will support larger
standalone solar systems that can light up schools or
run life-saving medical equipment in clinics.
By enabling access to these technologies, ROGEP seeks
to transform the lives of those currently living without
the grid.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | STRENGTHENING MARKETS 63

EXPANDING
INFRASTRUCTURE
■
To reduce risks of flooding and landslides
brought on by extreme weather, Burundi
is putting its people to work climateproofing
key transport and drainage
infrastructure, including these canal
works at the Nyabagere River.
© World Bank

■
Access to clean water
in urban areas is
now at 90 percent
but keeping up with
rapid urbanization is
challenging and rural
areas lag behind.
© Dominic Chavez /
World Bank
BURKINA FASO
Extending water supply
and sanitation services to all
Burkina Faso is working toward achieving
universal and equitable access to improved
water supply and sanitation services. A major
injection of IDA18 financing—$300 million—
will boost ongoing efforts to improve service
delivery and ensure efficient water resources
management.
66

For 40 years, Rasmané Compaoré has lived in the same
mud-brick house on the outskirts of Ouagadougou. His
family had long been obliged to pay a daily fee to collect
water from the communal standpipe a kilometer away.
“At the height of the drought, my children waited in
line for water all day in vain, sometimes with several
hundred others,” he says. But now in his yard, near the
kitchen, stands a shiny brass faucet. At 82 years of age,
Compaoré is finally living in a home with running water.
He is one of 50,000 customers who have signed up for a
household water connection with Burkina Faso’s National
Water and Sanitation Agency. It is part of an ambitious
national plan to expand the water distribution network
and improve management in urban areas—and it is one
of many water and sanitation sector projects supported
by the World Bank. Over the past two decades, the World
Bank has worked with other development partners and
mobilized more than $260 million in IDA and trust fund
financing to bring improved water supply and sanitation
services to over 1.7 million people in Burkina Faso.
Largest donor-financed operation
In June 2018, the World Bank boosted its support with
the largest donor-financed operation in Burkina Faso’s
history: the $300 million IDA-funded Water Supply and
Sanitation Program for Results. It will benefit 1.1 million
people with improved water supply and 1.3 million people
with improved sanitation services.
To support more effective management and service
delivery, the program will help strengthen the sector’s
human capital. It will promote partnerships between
government agencies, municipalities, universities, and
research centers and support applied research and
technical and vocational training, with special focus on
opportunities for women.
“This innovative program will leverage finance for the
water supply and sanitation sector through the built-in
incentives it plans to provide for improved sustainability
of service delivery, including operation and maintenance,
This innovative program will leverage
finance for the water supply and
sanitation sector through the builtin
incentives it plans to provide
for improved service delivery.
Cheick Kanté, World Bank Country Manager
for Burkina Faso
cost recovery, and human capital strengthening,”
explains Cheick Kanté, World Bank Country Manager for
Burkina Faso.
Universal and equitable access
The program will contribute to fostering inclusion and
shared prosperity in Burkina Faso by bringing water
supply and sanitation services to urban and rural areas
that are particularly lagging behind in terms of access.
Despite progress, only one in five people nationwide
has access to an improved sanitation facility, and three
out of four people defecate in the open. Public latrines
in rural and urban areas are few and poorly maintained
(if at all), leaving students at school, patients in health
centers, and public market goers with no designated,
sanitary place to relieve themselves.
Over a third of the rural population does not have access
to an improved water source—one protected from
outside contamination, particularly fecal matter. While
the rate improves to over 90 percent in Burkina Faso’s
cities, keeping up with rapid urbanization is difficult.
Achieving universal access to improved water supply
and sanitation services is a national priority to support
Burkina Faso’s continued economy growth—averaging
5.5 percent GDP growth annually—and that of its
population—estimated to reach 29 million people by
2030 from the current 18 million.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | EXPANDING INFRASTRUCTURE 67

■
While informal and
personal use of solar
energy has gained
traction in CAR, the
25 MW Danzy solar
power plant will be the
country’s first largescale
application of
solar PV technology.
© Eskinder Debebe / UN
Photo
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
Powering up the energy sector
with solar
With one of the lowest energy access rates
in Africa and a weak transmission network,
Central African Republic is investing in its
energy sector to stimulate growth. Its first
utility-scale solar power plant holds the
promise of a brighter future.
68

In May 2018, the highest authorities in the Central African
Republic (CAR), along with development partners and
economic operators, attended a ceremony in the town of
Danzy about 20 kilometers outside the capital Bangui.
There, the first stone was laid for a new 25-megawatt
(MW) grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) solar power plant
with 25 megawatt hours of battery storage.
Central African president, Faustin Archange Touadera,
attended the launch ceremony.
“The main concern for Central African economic operators
is the lack of electricity, which prevents businesses from
being able to store and process their products,” he noted.
“One of the solutions recommended to mitigate this lack
of electricity is solar energy. I would like to thank the
World Bank for agreeing to finance the establishment of
a 70-hectare solar farm.”
A first for CAR, a first for Africa
Under IDA18, the World Bank is preparing to finance the
first phase of the project, which consists of building a
25 MW solar PV plant with battery storage of a similar
capacity, strengthening transmission and distribution
networks, and supporting sector reforms.
The project also will prepare the site for the second phase
targeting an additional 15 MW and will help improve
the financial health of the state-owned company,
Énergie Centrafricaine (ENERCA). Technical assistance
will promote the development of solar solutions for
secondary cities and rural areas, notably by assessing
the use of solar panels for homes and public buildings.
“It’s a 40 MW project with an equivalent storage
capacity—the first project on the African continent to
install battery capacity that matches the capacity of
the solar panels. In addition, the project will strengthen
the transmission network that originates in Boali
and the distribution network in Bangui,” explained
Jean‐Christophe Carret, World Bank Country Director for
CAR, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Republic
of Congo.
It’s the first project on the African
continent to install battery capacity
that matches the capacity of the
solar panels.
Jean-Christophe Carret, World Bank Country
Director for CAR, the Democratic Republic
of Congo, and the Republic of Congo
Strengthening the energy sector
The Danzy solar project is a critical investment in CAR’s
stunted energy sector. According to Gontran Djono
Ahaba, Minister of Development of Energy and Hydraulic
Resources, “The recurrent politico-military crises that
have peppered the history of the Central African Republic
have substantially derailed all efforts undertaken to
promote economic and social development, resulting in
40 years of delayed investment in electricity production
and distribution infrastructure.”
Only 8 percent of CAR’s population has access to
electricity, mainly in the capital. Access rates are
2 percent in rural areas and 35 percent in Bangui, home
to a million people. The current installed generation
capacity is just 23 MW, with 19 MW coming from the
Boali 1 and 2 hydroelectric plants.
In addition, over a third of all electricity produced is
lost along transmission lines, and bill collection stands
at 65 percent for the 30,000 subscribed households
in Bangui. Clients pay a low rate for electricity,
$0.14 (CFAF 65) per kilowatt hour, which does not allow
ENERCA to recover its costs and forces the government
to subsidize the company.
With the construction of the Danzy solar plant, CAR
hopes to open up the solar energy market and attract
private investors for future expansion.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | EXPANDING INFRASTRUCTURE 69

ETHIOPIA
Bridging gender gaps
in the energy sector
Ethiopia is pioneering a first-ofa-kind
model for achieving gender
equality in the energy sector while
pursuing universal energy access
by 2025. The IDA18-backed program
is improving the lives of women,
creating more equitable institutions,
and bringing more power to citizens
nationwide.
■
ELEAP is helping
Ethiopian women enter
the energy sector, gain
better services, and have
a brighter future.
© Arne Hoel / World Bank
70

“I love going to school and learning but we don’t have any
electricity at my house or neighborhood,” says 12-yearold
Melkam Tamiru, a third grader from Keya Gebriel in
Ethiopia’s Amhara region.
Tamiru, who dreams of being a doctor, rushes to finish her
after-school chores so she can do her homework before
dark. She says the weak light of her mother’s cooking fire
“hurts my eyes when I try to read.”
Despite being the fastest growing economy in Africa over
the past decade, Ethiopia is hampered by an inadequate
and unreliable energy supply that costs 2 percent of GDP
annually. With over 70 million people living in the dark
(about 70 percent of the population), Ethiopia is among
the top three countries worldwide facing profound
energy access deficits. Ethiopia’s numbers are also weak
in another area: gender equality. It ranked 109 out of 143
countries in the 2016 Global Gender Gap Report.
Ambitious energy goals
To address these challenges and support the Government
of Ethiopia’s goal of achieving universal energy access
by 2025, the World Bank supported the launch of the
National Electrification Program in 2017. It is the first
electrification program in Africa to adopt a holistic
approach to universal access, establishing targets and
timetables for integrated grid and off-grid solutions, an
investment financing prospectus, actions to close the
gender gap in the energy sector, and a comprehensive
menu of sector reform activities.
To support the program’s implementation, the World
Bank approved $375 million in IDA funding for the
Ethiopia Electrification Program for Results (ELEAP) in
March 2018.
“ELEAP is financing over one million connections. It is the
largest electrification-focused operation for the World
Bank and has set a benchmark for Africa,” says Rahul
Kitchlu, who leads the World Bank ELEAP team.
ELEAP is financing over one million
connections. It is the largest
electrification-focused operation
for the World Bank.
Rahul Kitchlu, World Bank ELEAP team leader
Championing gender equality
ELEAP is also unique for its focus on promoting gender
equality as part of overall energy sector engagements.
Through a sector-wide approach that included analysis
of fundamental gender gaps, stakeholder consultations,
high-level policy advice, and mobilization of significant
financial resources from the World Bank, a first-of-akind
model has been shaped to support gender equality
in the energy sector.
Gender actions being implemented through ELEAP
include addressing occupational sex-segregation
across energy utilities with over 14,000 employees and
supporting career development of female candidates.
Female entrepreneurship in the off-grid market is also
being promoted.
To overcome a major impediment to female participation
in the work force, childcare facilities are being put in
place in utility offices across all 11 regions of Ethiopia.
Prevention and response to gender-based violence at
the workplace and project sites are also receiving more
resources.
ELEAP will ensure energy service provision to femaleheaded
households, as well as investigating affordability
of those services. Given that the burden of energy poverty
falls disproportionately on women and girls in Ethiopia,
they are most likely to benefit from modern energy
services. Girls like Tamiru will find it easier to study with
reliable light, and she will be one step closer to realizing
her dream of becoming a doctor.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | EXPANDING INFRASTRUCTURE 71

■
Kilindini Harbor Port
currently handles
cargo for Kenya
and neighboring
countries. The Kenyan
government’s PPP
Unit has a pipeline
of over 70 projects,
including the planned
development of the
Shimoni Port to support
enhanced trade and
tourism.
© Kenya Ports Authority
KENYA
Promoting public-private
partnerships for infrastructure
development
Rapid economic and population growth has
pushed Kenya to modernize and expand its
infrastructure to improve the flow of people,
goods, and opportunities. Private sector
investment is key to meeting the potential
of infrastructure-driven growth by 2030.
72

Over 25 years ago, the Government of Kenya began a
process of reducing its involvement in the national
economy, opening it up to the private sector. A
combination of market liberalization, initial public offers,
and concessionary contracts introduced public-private
partnerships (PPPs) to the country’s telecommunication,
transport, aviation, and retail sectors.
Policy makers recognized the benefits of letting the
private sector assume the costs and risks in big
corporations and projects so that public resources could
be channeled into social spending. As Kenya continued
to enact legislative and regulatory reforms to encourage
private investment and business ownership, its ranking
in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index rose
from 136 out of 189 countries in 2014 to 80 in 2017.
Easing private investment
In 2018, Kenya unveiled its Big Four economic plan,
calling on development partners and the private sector
to help realize $70 billion worth of development projects
and capacity building initiatives in affordable housing,
manufacturing, education, and healthcare.
The World Bank responded with $50 million in additional
financing from IDA18 to the Kenya Infrastructure
Finance Public-Private Partnership Project (IFPPP).
Originally launched in 2012, the project is channeling the
new funding toward technical assistance to build PPP
frameworks and methodologies and advisory services to
support project preparation and procurement. A related
project will work in parallel to assess and potentially
provide World Bank-backed guarantees for private
investment in projects prepared under IDA lending.
Under IFPPP, government and World Bank technicians
have built on Kenya’s 2013 PPP Act and fledging PPP Unit
to establish a sound legal, regulatory, and institutional
framework that is beginning to deliver.
“Now we have a world class PPP framework and
methodologies, a high level of skills within government,
and a robust pipeline of projects,” says World Bank Senior
PPP Specialist, Shyamala Shukla.
The potential for an infrastructure
PPP is both exciting and innovative
and would position Kenya to be a role
model for Africa.
Rachel Muthoga, deputy head of Public-Private
Dialogue at the Kenya Private Sector Alliance
The expansion of the Nairobi–Nakuru highway is one
of 70 projects being prepared and brought to market
by the strengthened PPP Unit, as is the development
of the Shimoni Port, 80 kilometers south of Mombasa.
The role of the private sector will be to inject additional
funds to improve port facilities, support associated
infrastructure, and oversee port operations.
Rachel Muthoga, deputy head of Public-Private Dialogue
at the Kenya Private Sector Alliance says that “the
potential for an infrastructure PPP is both exciting and
innovative and would position Kenya to be a role model
for Africa.”
Connecting innovators with industry
To compliment IFPPP, Kenya is also working to build
much-needed skills within its private sector. An
additional $50 million in IDA18 funding is supporting
the Kenya Industry and Entrepreneurship Project, which
aims to bridge the gulf between industry, enterprise
innovators, and academia.
Efforts are underway to reach out to intermediaries, such
as incubation hubs and co-working spaces, and evaluate
how best to strengthen their operational base. The goal
is to enhance the soft skills of innovators, entrepreneurs,
and start-ups so they are more proficient in formulating
business plans, pitching to investors, and building strong
teams. Some 33,000 individuals and nearly 2,400 firms
are expected to benefit.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | EXPANDING INFRASTRUCTURE 73

LIBERIA
Increasing access to electricity
to reenergize the economy
As Liberia works to diversify its
commodity-based economy and boost
trade and investment, it is looking
first to its energy sector. Expanding
electricity services and reducing costs
to businesses and households can spur
economic growth, job creation, and
poverty reduction.
■
Liberia Electricity
Corporation technicians
are working overtime
to get more customers
connected to the
national power grid.
© Ben Fomba, Jr.
74

Yassah Kpassakoi owns the Kpassakoi Trading
Corporation (KTC), which operates a 15-bedroom hotel
and entertainment and shopping center in bustling
mid-town Monrovia, Liberia’s capital. Once dependent
on expensive generators to keep the lights on and
her business open, Kpassakoi is thrilled with her new
connection to the national power grid.
“I am happy that I do not have to pay so much money
to operate generators. Our profit margin has increased,
which will help us expand our business,” she says.
Kpassakoi is among thousands of Monrovians who have
gained access to cheaper, more reliable electricity thanks
to ongoing efforts to expand electricity services and make
them more affordable for businesses and households.
Increasing supply of affordable
electricity
The Government of Liberia is committed to increasing
the supply of reliable electricity while shifting away from
expensive diesel-powered generation toward cheaper
thermal sources, such as heavy fuel oil, and increasing
the share of renewable sources of electricity, mostly
hydropower. Investments in generation capacity have
dropped the electricity tariff from $0.54 to $0.39 per
kilowatt hour—a significant reduction but still high by
regional standards.
Liberia aims to lower costs further by importing cheaper
electricity from the regional market through the Côte
d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea (CLSG) Power
Interconnection Project. The World Bank is supporting
the project, most recently with $45 million in additional
financing from IDA18, as a key component of the West
Africa Power Pool (WAPP) program. It is working to
establish a cooperative power pooling mechanism for
West Africa to bring more stable and reliable electricity
at affordable costs to the citizens of the Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
I do not have to pay so much money
to operate generators. Our profit
margin has increased, which will help
us expand our business.
Yassah Kpassakoi, owner of Kpassakoi Trading
Corporation in Monrovia
The CLSG project will support the construction of
225-kilovolt transmission lines to interconnect the four
participating countries into the WAPP regional energy
market. This will allow Liberia to sell surplus electricity
from the Mount Coffee hydropower plant on the Saint
Paul River. It also will help bring future generations into
the regional market and enable commercial users, such
as large plantations and mining firms that currently
generate their own electricity, to buy power directly from
the market. The transmission lines would also provide
electricity to communities located within a kilometer of it.
Expanding the grid
Liberia is also investing in its national transmission
infrastructure to bring grid-connected power to more
urban and rural communities. Despite progress, Liberia
still has one of the lowest access rates in Africa:
4.9 percent nationally and 20 percent in Monrovia.
The ongoing Liberia Accelerated Electricity Expansion
Project, supported by $95 million in IDA financing, aims
to expand grid connections to over 47,000 households
and small businesses and 400 larger scale customers. So
far, more than 17,200 customers have been connected,
mainly in Monrovia.
It is also financing the construction of 110 kilometers
of 66-kilovolt transmission lines and 2,000 kilometers
of distribution lines in Monrovia and outlying counties.
Five new substations will be constructed and one
rehabilitated.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | EXPANDING INFRASTRUCTURE 75

■
Construction crews
are already working
on upgrades to the
Blendio-Kounia road
and bridge to ensure
safety and year-round
accessiblity.
© Ahmadou Bissan /
World Bank
MALI
Easing rural mobility to connect
people, services, and opportunity
Isolation from markets and services is, quite
literally, a roadblock impeding the development
of Mali’s rural agricultural areas, where the
majority of the poor lives. A rural mobility
project under IDA18 aims to boost productivity
by rehabilitating 1,700 kilometers of vital roads.
76

The inhabitants of Zanina, a rural commune in southern
Mali some 350 kilometers (km) from the capital Bamako,
rejoice in the construction of not one, not two, but three
concrete bridges connecting their communities to each
other and regions beyond. The wide, sturdy bridges now
bring vehicles, motorcyclists, pedestrians, shepherds
with their herds, and a new level of liveliness to farming
villages like Débéla. Located six km from the main road,
Débéla used to be difficult to enter or exit after heavy
rains. Now it is accessible year-round.
For Chata Diarra, a member of the Débéla village women’s
association, the new bridges mean greater financial
security and peace of mind.
“We welcome these works that allow us to transport our
products on time to neighboring markets in any season.
We also no longer worry about the children going into the
field or taking the animals to graze. With these bridges,
they can easily return home,” she says.
Reliable access to markets
These and other bridges are part of the Mali Rural Mobility
and Connectivity Project, funded by $70 million from
IDA18. It aims to rehabilitate 1,700 km of rural roads in
the Koulikoro (dryland zone) and Sikasso (southern zone)
regions of Mali and benefit some 650,000 people, mostly
farming communities.
“The engine of the Malian economy is agriculture,
and road access is part of an integrated approach to
addressing the low productivity of rural farmers,” says
Soukeyna Kane, World Bank Country Director for Chad,
Guinea, Mali, and Niger.
Alou Diallo from the small commune of Blendio knows
first-hand how critical roads are to the flow of people,
goods, and services across this rural landscape. He recalls
a recent event when pouring rain made their narrow,
dilapidated bridge impassable, blocking market vendors.
We welcome these works that
allow us to transport our products
on time to neighboring markets in
any season.
Chata Diarra, member of the Débéla village
women’s association
“They had to remain on the other side until the water
receded, and they arrived late to sell their products. The
farmers lost their perishable foodstuffs and the livestock
producers had to wait for the next weekly market,”
he explains.
Fortunately, the Blendio-Kounia access road, an 84‐km
stretch that includes this unsafe bridge, is already
undergoing reconstruction along with portions of
National Highway 7 in the southern Sikasso region.
Better access to services, jobs
In addition to boosting agricultural productivity,
improving road access will increase community
connections to basic services like schools, health
centers, and government offices. The project will also
finance small common facilities, such as water wells,
small warehouses, and vegetable gardens for women, to
foster social cohesion and empowerment.
Moreover, the rehabilitation of these roads offers
employment to the local workforce. Some 144,000 jobs
will be created in five years, helping to reduce poverty
in target areas. Community-level teams also will be
formed to ensure ongoing maintenance of improved
roads. By engaging its citizens, Mali is paving the way to
more collaborative and responsible management of its
vital infrastructure.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | EXPANDING INFRASTRUCTURE 77

■
Borehole testing was
a major success in the
village of Ndour Ndour.
© Idrissa Sane /
World Bank
SENEGAL
Increasing access to water
brings a flow of benefits
More urban areas outside of Dakar—and soon
parts of rural Senegal—are gaining access to
modernized water and sanitation services.
New boreholes dot the landscape, bringing fresh
water and hope for better lives and livelihoods
in affected communities.
78

Near to the entrance of Ndour-Ndour, a village some
70 kilometers south of Senegal’s capital of Dakar,
stands a new borehole. Just opposite is the Gning family
compound where Astou Ggning is busy with children and
chores. For her, the borehole is a welcome sight that
holds the promise of reprieve.
Women and girls are the first victims of water deficits
as the duty of water collection most often falls to them.
According to a study by the World Bank and the French
Cooperation, water is fetched with 18 to 20-liter plastic
containers (some as large as 35 liters) several times a
day. With an average distance of 200 meters between
home and water source, a woman or girl may carry
200 kilograms daily.
Astou Ggning says that women were “freed from their
chains” during the borehole testing period. “We had time
to do other things. We didn’t have to rise before daybreak
to draw water. We had water all the time. Our daughters
had more time to go to school,” she explains.
Targeting urban and rural areas
Astou Ggning and the entire community look forward
to the permanent operation of the borehole, which is
being completed as part of the World Bank-financed
Urban Water and Sanitation Project. It recently received
additional financing of $30 million from IDA18 to
advance work on reducing the water shortage in Dakar
and neighboring Petite Côte area.
Another $130 million in IDA18 funding was approved in
June 2018 for the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation
Project, which aims to provide 1.5 million Senegalese
with access to piped water and improved sanitation
facilities in the Groundnut Basin area in the center west
of the country and home to one third of Senegal’s rural
population.
Women were freed from their chains
during the borehole testing period.
We had time to do other things.
Astou Ggning, resident of Ndour-Ndour village
More than water
For Senegal, improving water and sanitation
infrastructure is key to shared prosperity as it leads
to reductions in water-borne diseases and associated
absenteeism from work and school as well as reductions
in costs associated with medical expenses and loss of
income. Keeping pace with population expansion has
been a challenge for Senegal’s water and sanitation
services.
In the commune of Nguékhokh where water infrastructure
has been expanded, the mayor Pape Songhé Diouf
explains they had only one borehole built in 1984 when
the population was less than 1,000 people. It has since
grown to 60,000 people, with 80 percent lacking access
to water until recently.
“The World Bank gave us life, because water is life… the
availability of this resource is impacting other sectors of
the economy,” he says.
Communities east of Dakar also feel the impact of
improved water access even though a drop has yet to
flow. A gravel road leading to the village of Kissane
ends at the newly installed borehole after crossing the
neighboring villages of Birbirame and Ndiass-Palam
where standpipes are now part of the landscape.
Ndiass-Palam village leader, Diama Ndoye, is looking
forward to the standpipes being functional, but
recognizes, “we are already benefiting from enhanced
mobility among the villages.”
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | EXPANDING INFRASTRUCTURE 79

■
Construction of
Zambia’s first gridconnected
solar
PV power plant at
Bangweulu is underway.
© NEOEN
ZAMBIA
Unlocking low cost, large scale
solar power
Adding power capacity is urgent in Zambia,
where less than a third of the population has
access to electricity and drought has limited
hydropower. The World Bank Group’s Scaling
Solar Program is helping to procure privately
financed solar power and enable rapid rollout.
80

In recent years, droughts in southern Africa have
significantly reduced the electrical output of Zambia’s
hydropower plants, leaving many Zambians in the dark.
Power shortages and forced rationing have impacted
the national economy and pushed the government to
mandate the procurement of 600 megawatts (MW) of
solar photovoltaic (PV) power and to target an overall
increase in installed generation capacity to 6,000 MW
by 2030.
With its year-round sunshine and geographical location,
Zambia is well positioned to integrate solar power into an
energy mix dominated by climate-vulnerable hydropower.
The Government of Zambia partnered with the World
Bank in 2015 through its newly launched Scaling Solar
Program to initiate the first phase of Zambia’s national
solar plan. It aims to attract independent power
producers to develop up to six 50 MW solar PV power
plants for a total of 300 MW of new power capacity.
Scaling Solar Program
“Zambia is the first country to implement the Scaling
Solar program, which brings together World Bank Group
services and instruments under a single engagement
aimed at creating viable markets for grid-connected
solar energy,” says Ina Ruthenberg, World Bank Country
Manager for Zambia.
Scaling Solar is an open and competitive approach that
facilitates the rapid development of privately-owned,
utility-scale solar PV projects in sub-Saharan Africa. It
enables governments and utilities to procure solar power
transparently and at the lowest possible cost. Through
competitive auctions organized by the program, Zambia
was able to attract world class developers to its first two
projects and obtain some of the lowest tariffs in Africa
at that time ($.06 and $.078 per kilowatt hour fixed for
25 years).
Scaling Solar is also quick. Zambia has been able to assess
projects and manage competitive tenders in short order.
The first plants are now being built with commissioning
Scaling Solar is a step change for
Zambia and other countries facing
electricity shortages.
Madalo Minofu, IFC Resident Representative
for Zambia
set to occur within a fraction of the time it would have
taken Zambia to do so following a business-as-usual
procurement process.
“Scaling Solar is a step change for Zambia and other
countries facing electricity shortages,” says Madalo
Minofu, IFC Resident Representative for Zambia.
More power, less expense
The first projects at Bangweulu (sponsored by French
company NEOEN) and Ngonye (sponsored by the
multinational Enel) are now under construction with IFC
financing and letters of credit backed by IDA partial risk
guarantees. Zambia is planning a second round with
Scaling Solar to develop additional solar plants, which
also envision IDA18 payment and loan guarantees to
back-stop the plants, coupled with IFC financing.
Zambia’s Minister of Energy, Mathew Nkhuwa, says the
projects will not only curb power shortages and provide
a source of energy that complements Zambia’s hydrobased
system, they “will allow the Government of Zambia
to reduce its electricity purchase from expensive diesel
power plants.”
Based on initial assumptions, Zambia’s savings over the
first 25 years would be about $163 million per 50 MW
power plant. The first two plants will increase the
country’s available generation capacity by 5 percent and
will help restore water levels in its hydropower dams.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | EXPANDING INFRASTRUCTURE 81

■
Fishing is a way of life
in Saint-Louis, Senegal,
but coastal erosion is
costing fishermen their
livelihoods and homes.
© Ibrahima BA Sané /
World Bank
WEST AFRICA
Fighting coastal erosion
and waves of change
Coastal communities in West Africa are losing
ground to the ocean each year. Families are
losing their homes and way of life to coastal
erosion, flooding, and even breaking waves.
Countries are working together to create new
solutions to protect the most vulnerable.
82

The city of Saint-Louis, once Senegal’s shining jewel and
a United Nation’s World Heritage Site, is fast losing land,
livelihoods, homes, and infrastructure due to coastal
erosion. Five meters of the Saint-Louis coastline are lost
each year and 200 families have had to abandon their
homes and assets. Another 1,000 families are at risk.
Climate change and related sea level rise contribute to
this emergency, but coastal erosion is also the result of
poor planning, with houses, hotels, and infrastructure
built in now precarious coastal zones.
Amadou Mansour Faye, Mayor of Saint-Louis and Minster
of Hydraulics and Sanitation warns that if the sea level
rises and the Langue de Barbarie disappears, “entire
territories inside the country will be threatened.
The situation in Saint-Louis is alarming, but it is not
unique. About 40 percent of West Africa’s GDP is
generated in coastal provinces, where almost one-third
of the population resides. Communities are vulnerable
to the effects of poor coastal development and climate
change, particularly severe coastal erosion and
frequent flooding.
Regional solution to regional problem
West African countries from Mauritania to Gabon are
working together to manage threats along their joint
coastline in a more collaborative, integrated way. Led by
West African governments and supported by the World
Bank and other partners, the newly launched West Africa
Coastal Areas Management Program (WACA) aims to
incite greater cooperation among countries and regional
institutions.
In April 2018, the World Bank approved $190 million in
IDA funding for the first WACA resilience investment
project to support six countries—Benin, Côte d’Ivoire,
Mauritania, São Tomé & Príncipe, Senegal, and Togo—
and the West Africa Economic and Monetary Union
(WAEMU). Potentially, WACA could grow to include all
17 countries along the West African coastline.
Our concern is to preserve our
territory and ensure that the
population of Saint-Louis, especially
fishermen in the Langue de Barbarie,
can live and do their jobs safely.
Amadou Mansour Faye, Mayor of Saint-Louis
and Minster of Hydraulics and Sanitation,
Senegal
“This project is a collective response to the urgent need
to address coastal degradation in a regional, integrated
manner. It is an opportunity to strengthen the resilience
of West Africa’s communities and transform their
livelihoods,” says Makhtar Diop, the World Bank’s Vice
President for Infrastructure.
Going grey and green
Across the region, WACA will protect against coastal
erosion through traditional “grey” infrastructure, such
as building seawalls, dikes, and coastal groins. It will
also restore and preserve “green” infrastructure, such
as fixing dunes, restoring wetlands and mangroves, and
replenishing beaches—all of which play a critical role in
preserving the coastline.
Flooding will be reduced by rehabilitating lagoons
and drainage systems and by improving watershed
management. Interventions will also support pollution
control through better treatment of marine litter, oil
spills, and industrial and municipal waste.
WACA will also work with WAEMU and three other
regional entities to ensure information is shared and
recurring trends are monitored and addressed at the
regional level. More partners are expected to join WACA
as it expands efforts to boost knowledge transfer,
mobilize additional finance, and foster political dialogue
among countries.
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | EXPANDING INFRASTRUCTURE 83

■
IDA18 funding will
increase support for
hydromet research and
development in Burkina
Faso, where shifting
weather patterns
are being studied
by the Burkina Faso
Meteorological Service.
© Dominic Chavez /
International Finance
Corporation
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
Investing in hydromet for
climate-smart development
Africa accounts for just 4 percent of global
greenhouse gas emissions, but it is highly
vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
The Africa Hydromet Program provides realtime
weather, water, and climate information
and services to support communities, industries,
and countries continentwide.
84

Tesfaye, a grain and legume farmer in rural Ethiopia,
takes a break from guiding his grazing cattle to analyze
the skies in Chanco, north of the capital Addis Ababa.
The weather is critical to his livelihood, and it is not
always reliable. “This year, the weather was good, but
last year, there was less rain to grow teff, barley, and
lentils on my farm,” he says. “It will be very helpful if I
know about dangerous storms ahead of time, so I can
plan for planting and harvesting.”
Farmers like Tesfaye could benefit from dependable
weather, water, and climate information—collectively
known as hydromet services.
Essential information for all
A combination of hydrology and meteorology, hydromet
services offer real-time weather, water, and climate
updates; early warnings; and climate outlooks that can
help communities predict and prepare for impending
disasters. Hydromet services also provide the data
needed for weather forecasting and offer additional
climate and weather-related services. Everyday people,
from students to farmers, and entire industries, including
aviation and energy, benefit from hydromet services.
Less than 20 percent of sub-Saharan African countries
provide reliable hydromet services to their people and
economies. African governments often juggle competing
priorities for investment: without adequate funding,
national meteorological and hydrological services are
limited in their ability to contribute to climate-resilient
development and adaptation planning.
Africa Hydromet Program
Improved hydromet services can save African countries
from avoidable damage and loss, ensuring that past and
current investments in infrastructure, education, and
development are not lost to disasters. Hydromet services
can break the vicious cycle of damage and recovery.
Hydromet services provide us with
data, predictions, and information
so we can prepare for disasters and
effectively design our long- and shortterm
climate resilience strategies.
Jerry Lengoasa, CEO of the South African
Weather Service
To respond to this development priority, the World Bank,
the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery,
and other partners created the Africa Hydromet Program
in 2015 to support collaborative efforts to modernize
hydromet services across Africa. The program holistically
addresses modernization needs at the national, subregional,
and regional levels. This includes upgrading
observation infrastructure, interpreting data, and
delivering services to offer timely and reliable weather
and climate forecasts, especially on impending disaster
risks. In the first phase, 15 African countries and four
regional climate centers are being supported.
Looking ahead with IDA18 funding, the World Bank aims
to expand support to Burkina Faso as well as launch a
new multi-phase regional program in West Africa and
the Sahel. Starting with Mali, Chad, Togo, and regional
meteorological entities, the program will strengthen
hydromet services, information sharing, and coordination
for improved early warning, disaster response and safety
nets systems, and agricultural services.
Jerry Lengoasa, CEO of the South African Weather
Service, says citizens directly benefit from hydromet
services.
“Hydromet services are essential to everyday life,”
Lengoasa explains. “These services provide us with
data, predictions, and information so we can prepare
for disasters and effectively design our long- and shortterm
climate resilience strategies, which are essential to
achieving our development goals.”
TRANSFORMING AFRICA | EXPANDING INFRASTRUCTURE 85

Acknowledgements
This volume was a collective effort of the World Bank Africa Region External Communications
and Partnerships (AFREC) team, led by Haleh Bridi and Steven Shalita.
These stories about Africa transforming would not be possible without the tireless efforts
of World Bank Country Directors, Country Managers, and Team Task Leaders, who support
implementation of critical projects and programs in Africa; nor without the determination of
communications officers, who ensure these stories are told. Special thanks to Lionel Yaro,
Innocent Nsabimana, Mademba Ndiaye, Carlyn Hambuba, Edmond Dingamhoudou, Franck
Bitemo, Odilia Hebga, Olufunke Olufon, Rogers Kayihura, Sheila Kulubya, Gelila Woodeneh,
Sylvie Nenonene, Elita Banda, Habibatou Gologo, Vera Rosauer, Diana Styvanley, Zeria Banda,
Rafael Saute, Moses Kargbo, Enoh Ndri, Kennedy Fosu, Mamadou Bah, Michael Sahr, Loy Nabeta,
Benoit Cormier, Zirra Banu, Jennifer Lynch, Caroline Torres, Ryoko Wilcox, Alison Grimsland,
Caroline Cerruti, and David Bontempo.
Additional thanks to Leslie Ashby, Catherine Bond, Elena Queyranne, Anne Senges, Daniella
Van Leggelo Padilla, Amelody Lee, Alexandre Hery, Stephanie Crockett, Selena Batchily, Ahmad
Omar, Marcelle Djomo, Manuella Lea Palmioli, Greg Wlosinski, and Adam Broadfoot for their
role in producing this publication.
© The World Bank
www.orldbank.org/africa November 2018 | 41298